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THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 





THE 


CHRISTIAN FAITH 


PERSONALLY GIVEN IN 


A SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 


By 


OLIN ALFRED CURTIS 
Profescor of Systematic Theology in the Drew Theological Seminary 


OU OTL KUPLEVOUEY VUL@Y TIS TidTEWC, 
GAAG ouvepyoi toner THe Kapac Duar 





THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 


Copyright, 1905, by 
EATON & MAINS 


Printed in the United States of America 


First Edition Printed September, 1905 
Reprinted December, 1905; April, 1906; April, 1908; February, 1910; 
November, 1912; March, 1914; August, 1918; 
July, 1922; April, 1927 


%* VELLE BENE FACERE”’ 


To My Father 
Reuben Curtis 


<< How oft have I, 
A little child, hearkened my father’s voice 
Preaching the Word. : 
Again I see those circling, eager faces ; 
I hear once more the solemn-urging words 
That tell the things of God in simple phrase; 
Again the deep-voiced, reverent prayer ascends, 
Bringing to the still summer afternoon 
A sense of the eternal. As he preached 
He lived; unselfish, famelessly heroic,’” 


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L The Man and the Azuma! 5 
TL Persomaltty..----------------------------------0----- IS 
TEL The Moral Pesos ...........------------ enon eannn--- 25 
TV. Freedom, Personal amd Moral ----------------------- 37 
V. Personal Morsktty ----------------------------------- S7 
WL Religion. ...-.--------------------------------------- rT 
WIL. The Thessttie Arpument...........------.--.---------- 03 
WEE Bewokatn «<< ~ 226223 oe en ne new 2 ee enn nn nn ene EO3 
PART SECOND—THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
IX. The Chnsten Region amd tie Mora] Pessom......... EES 
X. The Christien Region 2nd the Human Race -..-.---.- 129 
4 oe Christian Ce tan t¥ ee ee me ee me 143-— 
EL The Christian Book... ..........------------.-..«--- Iso 
THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 
MMM. Systematic Theology ----.-------------------=--0--000 3 — 
The Fest Doctmel Divaioe 
Men's Need of Recde=ptee 
XIV. The Creation and Fall of Man...-..-...--------.----- Igt 
XV. The Doctrime of Sm .....-.---~--<---- +22 n-ne eens ioe 
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| Tie Second Doctrical Divzion 
| Jezes Céeist, Ocr Lord and Redeeme= 
XVI The Desty of Our Lord ----.---.---------------------- BIE 
XVEL. The Incarnation of the Soa of God_......------------ 233 


viil 


DISCUSSION 


XVIII. 


XXII. 
XXIII. 


XXIV. 
XXV. 


XXVI. 


XXVII. 


XXVIII. 


XXIX. 


XXX. 
XXXII. 
XXXII. 
XXXII. 
XXXIV. 


XXXV. 
XXXVI. 


TABLE OF. CONTENTS 


The Third Doctrinal Division 
Our Lord’s Redemptive Work 


The Holiness of God. «- <2 00000500» 5.s os clei einen 


. The Moral Government. ........+.0++..6 su suauiisieniants 
. The Christian Meaning of Death... ....... GGasne eee 
. The Teaching of Saint Paul............0.seccewscsnee 


Our Lord’s Strange Hesitation in Approaching Death 
The Racial Theory of Our Lord’s Redemptive Work. 


The Fourth Doctrinal Division 
Redemption Realized in the New Man 


The Personal Dispensation of the Holy Spirit........ 
The Preparation for Conversion........-+++++++seeees 
COM VETSION £5 oho :e:ciers ores osre pase 0 0:0'010-wlare e 5 6) ale ea 
Personal Holiness . 22.0.0 0s002 000d ells 's\sletenee aiinrannele 
The Christian Doctrine of the Intermediate State.... 
The Resurrection of the Body .......-2+1eeseeeeeeee: 
The Fifth Doctrinal Division 
Redemption Realized in the New Race 
The Churchiof/Our Lords. s.sie's « 0<ls2 6 sickest eeeeinralole 
The Christian Sactaments... <2... «ass sslaeeielaien 
The Church Militant: .0)..0 0000. sce ols minlete nani AAA 
The Church Triumphant........-.csesesscees eevvesve 
Men Outside the New Race...........+ee0e- bg toae ute 
The Sixth Doctrinal Division 
The Triune God Revealed in Redemption 
The Attributes of God. so... 0sss!ss 05s cise witoiiennente 
The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity........-.-..++. 


PREFACE 


NEITHER in claim nor in spirit is this book dogmatic. 
As indicated in several ways by the book itself, there is 
no attempt to speak the final word, no aim to be, or to 
become, “‘the recognized authority” of any church, or of 
any school, or of any man. After years of preparatory 
waiting, I have, I believe, caught an important vision 
of the Christian Faith as an organic whole of doctrine, 
and I am eager to help other men to catch the same 
vision. 

In reading the book, many peculiarities of view and 
method will be discovered; but the main clue to all can 
be found in one thing, namely, in the junction of the two 
ideas, personal responsibility and racial solidarity. Every 
man is a responsible moral person ; but no man is complete 
in himself—he is made to be a fragment of an entire race. 
Instead of being content with one of these ideas, I use 
them both in junction, and with equally serious emphasis. 
In this peculiar junction there may be, I sometimes hope, 
a fair mediation between Arminianism and Calvinism. 

From many teachers and authors I have received 
suggestions; but there are four names that should be 
amply noted in this preface; for without the influence of 
these four men the book, in all probability, would never 
have been conceived. First, Dr. Daniel Whedon. He 
it was, and he alone, who convinced me beyond possible 
doubt that the necessitarian has no case in Ethics, and 
almost no case in Psychology. Second, Thomas Carlyle. 
For as much as ten years, in my early ministry, my mind 


x PREFACE 


was dominated by Carlyle. And at last he compelled me 
to appreciate the ethical appeal of the prophets of the 
Old Testament; and from this appreciation the entire 
moral fiber of my message has surely come. Third, 
Professor Borden P. Bowne. As Whedon and Carlyle, 
together, led me to see the moral significance of per- 
sonality, Bowne led me to see its cosmic significance. 
And this cosmic significance of personality is now basal 
in all my thinking. This statement, though, is not to be 
taken to mean that I pretend to represent Professor 
Bowne in definite opinion or tendency. I wish simply 
to pay an unstinted tribute to his influence without 
allying him to my theology. Fourth, Bishop Martensen. 
Not only did he create my confidence in Systematic 
Theology, also he started my present conception of the 
organism of Christian doctrine. Yet more ought to be 
said—the courage to wait for a vision of the total faith 
was kept alive in me by reading Martensen’s Christian 
Dogmatics. 

As to my discussions, there are, I am aware, places 
where the items are not fully in harmony. Sometimes 
this want of harmony results from my determination to 
preserve every mood in which the book was written. I 
would not cut out a passage to secure consistency, for I 
cared more for a full testimony than I did for a flawless 
argument. At other times the inconsistency is more 
deeply rooted, and means that I have not yet worked 
out all the implications of my Psychology. In a few 
most subtle situations I am not quite sure as to the real 
data, and so I waver in my estimate. 

Another matter—the scheme of quotation—requires 
a word of explanation. The primary purpose of this 
scheme is to provide an atmosphere for my discussion. 
But under this primary purpose a quotation is, at times, 
used to illustrate or confirm or enlarge a conclusion; or in 


PREFACE xi 


justice to state an important view which is different from 
my own. In every instance where a quotation from a 
foreign language makes such a contribution as may be 
of large value to the reader, it has been carefully trans- 
lated. In other instances, I have yielded to my own 
taste. 
Orn A. CurRTIs. 


The Drew Theological Seminary, 
Madison, New Jersey, 
August, 1905. 


It appears that the lines quoted on the page of dedi- 
cation have not been widely recognized. They are from 
the noble tribute paid by Richard Watson Gilder to his 
father, who was (as was mine) a Methodist preacher. 


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INTRODUCTION TO THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE 


FRAGMENT OF A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A PROFESSOR OF MORAL 
SCIENCE IN AN AMERICAN COLLEGE AND A STUDENT JUST ABOUT 
TO GRADUATE FROM A CERTAIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: 


Professor. ‘‘ Are you entirely satisfied with your course in theology?”’ 

Student. ‘‘No; the course has been of value to me, but it has one 
lack.” 

Professor. ‘‘What? I am interested.” 

Student. ‘‘In studying the Bible and Christian doctrine no con- 
nection was anywhere made with moral science.”’ 

Professor. ‘‘I am not surprised. The theologian is quite wont to 
forget that a sinner is a man.” 


THE INTRODUCTION 





Part First 
MAN 


FINDING A MAN 


To have a note of reality in our theology, we must see what actually 
takes place in the life of aman. In the last century much was written 
about man; new search was made in psychology, in ethics, in anthro- 
pology, and especially in sociology; and some of this search resulted 
in positive contribution to our knowledge; but from nearly all of this 
scientific work we turn away in disappointment. It is not merely 
that the view is partial, that the selection of data is often arbitrary, 
that the intrinsic human elements are never all vitally combined—the 
root of the failure lies deeper. These writers themselves care for 
science and not for living men. They have not the eye of love, and 
so they do not and cannot find a real man at all. It seems like “‘a 
spacious phrase,” but it is the truth, that in the poetry of Robert 
Browning one can come closer to the whole reality of human life 
than he can in any scientific treatise published in the last hundred 
years... . 

I too may fail, for the task is oftentimes baffling in the extreme; 
but I am eager to finda man. I want to see, and then to help you to 
see, a real man’s real life—not to be caught and held fast in the acci- 
dental overlay, not to be misled by the conventional estimate, not to 
be swept away by the scientific tendency, but to see for myself a real 
man’s real life. ... And to be true, patiently, comprehensively 
true, to our own fellow, the common man, (God help us there!) to be 
open to the meanings of all things in his experience, low things as well 
as high things, high things as well as low things; to enter into his 
most flashing and evasive moods; to commune with him as friend 
communes with friend—yes, to love him with an everlasting love; 
and out of all this, to tell the entire wonder of his story. .. . 

And I would discover, not only what a man is by nature, but also 
what he may become by the grace of God. To borrow a line from 
John Bunyan’s quaint Apology, I want to show you how a man 

“runs and runs 
Till he unto the gate of glory comes.” 
—From the notes for a course of Seminary Lectures. 





HE MAN AND THE ANIMAL 


Lower than God who knows all and can all, 
Higher than beasts which know and can so far 
As each beast’s limit, perfect to an end, 
Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more; 
While man knows partly but conceives beside, 
Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, 
And in this striving, this converting air 
Into a solid he may grasp and use, 
Finds progress, man’s distinctive mark alone, 
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are, 
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. 

—Robert Browning, A Death in the Desert. 


When I speak of transition I do not in the least mean to say that 
one species turned into a second to develop thereafter into a third. 
What I mean is that the characters of the second are intermediate 
between those of the two others. It is as if I were to say that such 
and such a cathedral, Canterbury, for example, is a transition between 
York Minster and Westminster Abbey. No one would imagine, on 
hearing the word transition, that a transmutation of these buildings 
actually took place from one into another.—Thomas Henry Huxley, 
Life and Letters, ii, 428. 


In the scientific sense evolution is neither a controlling law nor a 
producing cause, but simply a description of a phenomenal order, a 
statement of what, granting the theory, an observer might have 
seen, if he had been able to inspect the cosmic movement from its 
simplest stages until now. It is a statement of method and is silent 
about causation. . . . The causality of the series lies beyond it; 
and the relations of the members are logical and teleological, not dy- 
namic. In that case much evolution argument vanishes of itself. 
Survivals, reversions, atavisms, and that sort of thing become only 
figures of speech, which are never to be literally taken. In a 
phenomenal system these things can literally exist as little as they 
can in a piece of music, for in such a system only laws and ideas abide. 
—Borden P. Bowne, Theism, Deems Lectures for 1902, pp. 104, 108. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


I. THE MAN AND THE ANIMAL 


NECESSARILY here we touch the dominant theory of 
evolution. There are, as Professor Bowne has pointed 
out, two different ways of regarding the process of evo- 
lution in nature, namely, as a causal process and as a 
phenomenal process. For illustration take the series 
ABC. Our questions are: Did A by dynamic efficiency 
produce B, and then B in the same causal manner pro- 
duce C? Or did A simply first appear in a progressive 
plan which next required B, and then culminated in C? 
Readily we perceive that these questions pertain to two 
distinct provinces, the first question to that of meta 
physics, the second to that of natural science. Evolu- 
tion as a theory of natural science, aiming to furnish an 
account of phenomenal relations in nature, I can receive 
and receive with enthusiastic gratitude toward such 
naturalists as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wal- 
lace; but evolution as metaphysics, aiming to furnish a 
philosophy of causation, I must reject as utterly super- 
ficial and unconvincing. . 

Perhaps we can handle the subject with more clear- 
ness and interest by making reference to that popular 
exposition by Charles Morris, called Man and His An- 
cestor. In a brilliant chapter, “How the Chasm was 
Bridged,’ Mr. Morris teaches that the ape may have 
“emerged into man” by means of his first use of tools. 


8 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


To “some wise-headed old man-ape” there came, per- 
haps, the idea of binding a stone to the end of a club. 
Thus was made not only the earliest form of the battle-ax, 
but, as “our progressive ancestor” soon perceived, a 
veritable tool with which objects could be shaped. In 
this fortuitous manner, it is imagined, began the long 
and splendid line of human invention and manufacture! 

This is exceedingly interesting; but even more inter- 
esting than this event is the ‘‘ wise-headed old man-ape”’ 
himself. What is meant by saying that he “emerged 
into man”? Is it that he passed from mechanical 
volition into self-conscious volition? If so, then Mr. 
Morris has missed the true point of emphasis. The 
method of this passage into the experience of self-con- 
sciousness is not the remarkable thing. It is no more 
remarkable that a creature, if capable of self-conscious- 
ness at all, should become self-conscious by binding a stone 
to the end of a club than that Jean Paul should become 
self-conscious by sawing wood. The true point of em- 
phasis is the possibility of the fact and not the way in 
which the possibility is at last actualized. And is it not 
plain enough that the possibility of self-consciousness, 
wherever found, implies an initial, an inherent, capacity 
for self-consciousness? Could you begin with any hap- 
hazard thing and bring it on to self-consciousness by 
mere procedure and environment? Dropping details, 
my contention will amount to just this: If ever an “ape” 
became a self-conscious man it was because he was, in 
initial capacity, in fundamental plan of being, not an 
ape, but an undeveloped man. If Mr. Morris, or any 
naturalist, prefers to name this undeveloped man a 
““‘man-ape,’”’ wise-headed or otherwise, that is nothing 
but a convenience in classification, and in no degree does 
it impair or change the fact, the stupendous fact, that 
now for the first time in the onward sweep of life we have 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 9 


an individual creature with inherent capacity for man- 
hood. This capacity, this basal plan, “this possibility 
timidly looking toward a zenith’’—this, I insist, is the 
one significant thing precisely as it is the one significant 
thing in any child born in any human home to-day. 

Having in mind now this undeveloped man, the ques- 
tion comes up, Was he an evolution from a lower 
animal? More sharply, Was the first creature with 
capacity for self-consciousness evolved out of a creature 
having no such capacity? As already indicated, the 
term evolution is ambiguous and so the question can be 
taken in either of two ways. It might mean, Did the 
lower animal, by inherent dynamic, cause the undeveloped 
man? Or it might mean, Did the lower animal merely 
grant the occasion, the phenomenal point of demand? 
Was the lower animal simply man’s immediate antece- 
dent in a progressive teleological plan? If the causal 
meaning be intended, we are estopped, and must in- 
stantly answer, No! And we are estopped not by any 
presupposition of a special creation, but by the one fact 
that the lower animal, however similar to man in struc- 
ture, appearance, and habit, evinces no adequacy for such 
causation. The very feature of our natural constitution 
which seeks a cause at all also requires an adequate 
cause; and that an ape, or any lower animal, was an 
adequate cause for the primeval man is, as far as I 
can see, not only altogether without proof, but totally 
inconceivable. 

Nor are we aided by any formula such as the “bio- 
genetic process” provided by Professor Ernst Haeckel. 
These evolutionistic formule are for the most part sheer 
generalities, arbitrary and empty. They are more 
vacuous, if that be possible, than those amazing scho- 
lastic definitions which gave motive to the acid line in 
Faust, ‘Mit Worten ein System bereiten.”” Even when 


10 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


a scientific formula is of value, it is but a description of a 
natural method as observed,and can have no dynamic 
efficiency whatever. Indeed, it is beyond understanding 
how any serious thinker can ever believe that laws, proc- 
esses, collocations, and concatenations in nature ever 
do anything! 

To many, though, the crucial question is this: Did that 
undeveloped man have a simian parentage? This is a 
clear-cut question; but the answer given will depend not 
so much upon the array of argument as upon one’s per- 
sonal valuation of the kind of evidence afforded. As the 
significance of this personal estimate of the worth of 
evidence is seldom appreciated, and as it must be ap- 
preciated before the present theological situation can be 
fully understood, I will single out and dwell upon an item 
used in proof by both Mr. Morris and Mr. Darwin. This 
item I have selected not because it is more finical than 
many other items given, but because it is strikingly and 
interestingly characteristic and quickly serves to show 
the point which I have in mind. The hairs on a man’s 
upper arm grow in direction opposite to that of those 
on his lower arm; and they all, above and below, point 
toward the elbow. This peculiarity is not found, it is 
said, in the lower mammals; but it is found in some of 
the gibbons and in the larger anthropoid apes. Mr. 
Darwin’s ingenious explanation is this: These apes, when 
in the rain, originally made a water-shield by covering 
the head with the hands, ‘‘the hairs turning so that the 
rain could run downward in both directions toward the 
bent elbow.’’ A man, of course, now makes no such 
water-shield, but all the hairs on his arm still point 
toward the elbow; and in this insistent peculiarity we 
have a “‘survival”’ in proof of simian parentage. 

To some men this kind of evidence is forcible, and for 
full conviction they need only a quantity, larger or 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 1 


smaller; but to other men such an argument, however 
enlarged, is but a pronounced material fallacy. Nature 
is too vast, too complex, too secretive, and man’s origin 
is too remote in time, for us sanely to draw so positive a 
conclusion from any number of similarities, whether 
superficial or structural. Biology now seems to an on- 
looker to be unusually hesitant; theories confidently 
held only a few years ago have been given up; and no 
man can tell what theory will fill the horizonten years 
hence; but this much is certain—no theory based entirely 
upon the kind of evidence now used by evolutionists will 
ever satisfy all truth-seekers. 

But this question itself of man’s parentage, while im- 
portant in certain lines of discussion, is not so crucial as 
is usually, and on both sides, taken for granted. Estab- 
lish, say, a tarsiid parentage for the primeval man, and 
what would it amount to as bearing upon any profound 
defense of the Christian faith? Nothing one way or the 
other. The connection between parents and offspring 
would be superficial—phenomenal—and the demand for 
an adequate cause would be precisely as urgent as it was 
before. Neither would this phenomenal connection re- 
quire us to nodify the fundamental Christian conception 
of man’s nature, condition, and destiny. 

My own general position as to the theory of evolution 
can be summarily gathered up in this way: In nature ; 
there are two kinds of progress, one kind of the plan, 
and the other of the individual. The progress of the 
plan is by means of a series of concrete individuals, the "i 
first making the start, then each one gathering up the 
meaning of the past and fixing a new point of departure 
toward the final goal. The progress of the individual is 
by growth, or development, until its inherent capacity, 
or its primal scheme of being, is realized. No individual 
can become another. No individual can efficiently 


12 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


cause another. But whenever an individual is a certain 
thing, or has by development reached a certain condition, 


~then another sort of an individual may be required to 


carry out the whole plan in its further reach. As phe- ~ 
nomena, transient or abiding, two individuals may be 
closely connected under the plan; and this connection, 
as in the case of a human mother and child, may be of 
large and possibly everlasting significance; but funda- 
mentally, in causation, every individual is as isolated, 
and as utterly provided for by the plan, as though there 
were no other individual in existence. The law of hered- 


_ity itself is nothing but the plan’s method by which an 


individual is made a deposit for the meaning of the past. 
And the total plan is a bare method, too. It never 
takes care of itself. It never does any dynamic task. 
It has no secret, potent, resident forces which produce 
things and push things. No natural law or power makes 
either the corn grow or the winds whistle. On the one 
hand, the system of nature is not a deistic machine, 
wound up once for all to perform its own set task. And, 
on the other hand, it is not a pantheistic organism, forever 
self-sufficient for its own necessary process. It needs 
God, the immanent and yet transcendent God. In every 
point and in every movement nature needs the Absolute 
Will. Outside of one very limited realm, which requires 
no emphasis here, there is no causation other than that of 
this Divine Will. Forces, laws, processes, evolutions—. 
they all but express the personal power and manners of 
the Lord God Almighty. The poetry of the psalmist was 
in direct trace of the ultimate truth when he said, “The 
God of glory thundereth.”’ 

Most tersely said, evolution is but a series of individual 
items planned for culmination; each item, after the start, 
getting from adjacent items an occasion for being, and 
also all phenomenal relations; and the entire series 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 13 


making one coherent, ever-moving scheme to manifest 
in time the purpose of the Creator. 

Once I saw the sketches used by William Morris Hunt 
in painting the Flight of Night. With these sketches 
before me, I could grasp the underlying plan of, the 
picture, and see how and why one figure was related to 
another. A certain figure grew under treatment until it 
was filled out in form, color, and expression, and then its 
completion made another related figure necessary to the 
further development of the whole plan. Looking at a 
consequent figure from an artistic standpoint, one could 
properly say, “That figure was evolved out of those 
before it.” But the remark would mean only that the 
consequent figure was occasioned—that is, it received 
from the preceding figures a fitness of position and a pe- 
culiar accentuation in form, color, and expression. And 
even more might be said. Not only does the consequent 
figure have characteristics which surely it would not have 
as an unrelated item, but also some of these character- 
istics are borrowed (inherited) because the underlying 
plan requires a thematic emphasis by repetition. But 
whatever was done, it was done with items under a plan 
by the artist. The Flight of Night did not paint itself. 
No item of the picture did anything. William Morris 
Hunt did the whole thing. He alone was the efficient 
cause. 

A man is an animal. But this is because in certain 
features he is like an animal. In other words, it is mere 
classification. And man is like an animal not because he 
was evolved out of an animal, or dynamically caused by 
an animal, but because the underlying plan of the living 
God, at this point in its progress, calls for a being that 
gathers up the meaning of all animal life before rising 
into the dignity of personality. 


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Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but he is a thinking 
reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush 
him. A breath of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But 
were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than 
that which kills him, because he knows that he dies, and the universe 
knows nothing of the advantage it has over him.—Pascal, Thoughts, 
XViii, Xi. 


We here found that consciousness, when deeply scrutinized, is an 
act of opposition put forth against our sensations; that our sensations 
are invaded and impaired by an act of resistance which breaks up 
their monopolizing dominion, and in the room of the sensation thus 
partially displaced realizes man’s personality, a new center of activ- 
ity known to each individual by the name I; a word which, when 
rightly construed, stands as the exponent of our violation of the causal 
nexus of nature, and of our consequent emancipation therefrom. 
—James Frederick Ferrier, Philosophical Works, iii, 207. 


Among all the errors of the human mind, it has always seemed to 
me the strangest that it could come to doubt its own existence, of 
which alone it has direct experience; or to take it at second hand as 
the product of an external nature which is known only indirectly, 
only by means of the very mind to which we would fain deny existence. 
—Hermann Lotze, Microcosmus, Clark, i, 263. 


II. PERSONALITY 


In his fragmentary book, Facts and Comments, Her- 
bert Spencer notes a psychological problem. It is sug- 
gested to him by those “invading melodies’’—“ often 
those vulgar ones originating in music halls and repeated 
by street pianos’’—which lodge in the consciousness and 
are not easily expelled. Probably we all recognize his 
fact—we have had our own attention to higher things 
impaired by the insistence of some prowling tune! This 
humiliating invasion, Mr. Spencer thinks, throws an im- 
portant side-light on the dispute concerning the Ego, and 
renders dubious the contention that there is an innate 
knowledge of personality. For, he asks, if there is a 
distinct person, a central self, how will you explain this 
invasion? You cannot relate it to the unit of the Ego; 
and if the rebellious thing cannot be unified with the Ego, 
what is it? In a word, how can there be any unitary 
person when there is no harmony in consciousness? 

This skeptical puzzle would be amusing were it not 
so extremely pathetic. It is something as if a man in 
crossing Brooklyn Bridge should begin to doubt the 
existence of the bridge, the one thing which enabled him 
to be up there at all! Mr. Spencer’s annoyance, his 
effort to expel the “invading melodies,” his quick dis- 
cernment of the psychological problem—yes, his very 
doubt itself—would be impossible were he himself 
nothing but an incoherent series of conscious momenta, 
“a loose bundle of mental states.’”’ There could be no 
realization of the flying and conflicting elements of 
consciousness were there not over against all these an 
abiding point of personal unity. Paradoxical as it is, 


18 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


personality is never more largely evident than it is when 
we begin to doubt its existence. 

Herbert Spencer’s primary failure, a failure vitiating 
his entire system of philosophy, lies in this one thing: He 
is never true to man’s total experience. Every man has 
a dual life. There is a coherent side and an incoherent 
side. In this very instance, the invasion cited, there is 
plain duality. The man, when invaded, is just as con- 
scious of himself trying to expel the prowling tune as he 
is of the invasion itself. Then, why not say so? A 
philosopher ought to be true to both sides of man’s ex- 
perience; he has no right to cover up one side, or to neg- 
lect one side; he has no right to explain one side at the 
expense of the other. Real philosophy is at the root an 
ethical matter. It demands that we cherish all reality; 
that we treat every fact as if it had come, like a shining 
spark, from the Moral Law. 

This primary failure leads to another failure. Mr. 
Spencer is unable to appreciate the significance of the 
difference between the being conscious of things and the 
being conscious of self. When merely conscious of 
things, a man is, like an animal, a bare individual in 
automatic response to all the influences which reach him. 
As Dr. James E. Latimer once said, “Nature passes 
through him unhindered as water passes through a 
spout.” This individual response is, I repeat, automatic, 
as much so as when a locomotive instantly “shivers” at 
the first move of the lever. Not only sensations, emo- 
tions, individualistic tempers are automatic; but even 
thoughts and volitions may be automatic also. Man is 
a highly sensitive machine, that is all, save in those upper 
moods when he is conscious of himself. And even then 
he is only “an inhabited machine.” This self-con- 
sciousness, admittedly, gets its psychological inception 
in ordinary consciousness; but there is no unitary worth, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 19 


no personality, until self is held in consciousness with 
such clarity as to provide a new, personal purchase for - 
the leverage of the will. And even now, with self clearly 
seized, there is only a beginning in personal life. In 
self-consciousness there is a point of unity; but it is, 
at first, a bare point, not only subject to such invasions 
as disturbed Mr. Spencer, but now and again violently 
and completely overwhelmed. And the surprising tor- 
ment of the matter is that a man must be both the in- 
dividual and the person, and so on both sides of his 
own battle. In the striking words of Hegel, a man is 
“both the fighter and the fight itself.’”’ And it is this 
very peculiarity which makes human life so profoundly 
sad, often so profoundly tragic, and yet so martially 
glorious. If we tried in one swift sentence to sum up the 
first inner meaning of man’s life, we could hardly say a 
better thing than this: To personalize the entire individual. 
This personal mastery of the individual cannot be com- 
pleted in this world; but we can begin, and then with 
God’s help do more and more. It is like a man who 
“preémpts a claim’? on one of our Western prairies. 
At first the settler is there with only one point of civ- 
ilization—a stake fixed in the ground. Then he clears 
out the tangle for a dooryard; then he builds a cabin 
large enough for a home; then he enters into a long, 
weary, unyielding struggle, until the man is master of 
the wilderness! 


ANALYSIS OF PERSONALITY 


In psychology it is often taught that personality is 
grounded in the power to become self-conscious. This 
is true, but self-consciousness itself requires the most 
searching analysis. In such a close analysis, we find two 
features. The first I will name selj-grasp; the second, 
self-estimate. 


20 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Consideration of Self-grasp. Looking at man’s attain- 
ment of personality as a process, the preparatory thing 
in the personal process is the start in emancipation from 
the dominion of nature. In how lowa phase of animal 
consciousness this self-severance from nature begins, we 
do not know. One modern philosopher says, “The 
crushed worm writhing in pain undoubtedly distinguishes 
its own suffering from the rest of the world.” “Un- 
doubtedly”’ is a rather strong word here; but, however 
it may be with the worm, the higher animals do, un- 
doubtedly, make a distinction between subject and ob- 
ject. When, for example, the ponies in the Fife mines 
steal and open the miners’ piece-boxes, eat the bread and 
jam, and then carefully return the boxes, each box to its 
proper place, these ponies can hardly be considered as 
mixing up the miners, the boxes, the food, and them- 
selves in one opaque clutter. But this ability to dis- 
tinguish between subject and object does not amount to 
personality—is really no element of personality. Cer- 
tainly it is the beginning of a movement toward per- 
sonality; but it is only the end of the personal process 
which has the quality of personality. A man just starting 
up the Mount Washington road, eight miles long, is 
surely on that particular road; but he has no more of the 
summit-experience than has a man fast mired in a distant 
swamp. And it remains to be seen whether our man on 
the mountain road shall prove himself to be enough of a 
climber to achieve the vision at the top of the mountain. 
So this Fife pony can be scientifically regarded as in the 
personal process, but he is not thereby a person; indeed, 
for all practical discussion of reality, he is no nearer per- 
sonality than isa juniper tree. All this needs to be firmly 
said because the tendency now is to cheapen personality 
in the name of a more scientific study of the animal 
world. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 21 


By this term “self-grasp,’”’ then, I mean much more 
than self-severance from nature—I mean such a com- 
plete self-severance that the man can fully seize himself, 
can huld himself distinctly and steadily at the central 
blaze of his vision, can think his way clear around him- 
self. ‘I lifted myself up out of the underbrush and said, 
‘There, there you are.’” In simple formula, the state 
of consciousness in self-grasp may be expressed thus: “I 
am not this—nor this—nor all these—I am simply I 
myself.”’ 

In a passage of In Memoriam (XLIV) Tennyson has 
remarkably sung the truth, exactly what I mean by 
personal self-grasp: 


“The baby new to earth and sky, 
What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 

Has never thought that ‘This is I.’ 


“But as he grows he gathers much 
And learns the use of ‘I’ and ‘ me,’ 
And finds, ‘I am not what I see 

And other than the things I touch.’ 


‘*So rounds he to a separate mind 
From whence clear memory may begin, 
And through the frame that binds him in 
His isolation grows defined.” 


Consideration of Self-estimate. In grasping self, though, 
however strong the grasp, there is no finished import. 
The personal worth of the seizure lies in the fact that it 
renders inevitable some estimate of self. When I realize 
that I am “other than the things I touch,” I also, in the 
very act, discern a certain peculiarity in myself. This 
discernment of self-peculiarity is the basis of all self- 
judgment. Right here allow me to hold our discussion 
for a moment of emphasis. Do you not see a long out- 


22 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


sweep from this point where a person discovers a pecul- 
iarity in himself? It is just now that we first hear the 
breaking surf of the mighty deep of moral concern! 
Not that this incipient self-valuation is moral at all, but 
it prepares the way for a personal sense of responsibility 
under ethical demand. Were a man unable to perceive 
any peculiarity of self, he could never judge himself over 
against an ideal, and so could never feel responsibility 
toward the right, and so could never acquire moral 
character. 

Of course, this estimate of self is a changing, a growing 
thing—is, in truth, never absolutely perfect. Surprise 
after surprise awaits every man, especially at any crisis 
of his life, when the unsounded mystery of his individual 
being flings to the surface new things or new combina- 
tions. Phillips Brooks once said (I condense it): “My 
future is to me a perpetual curiosity because I know so 
little about myself.’’ But this imperfection of self- 
estimate matters not greatly, for all we now need is such 
an estimate as will provide for the on-going of the personal 
and moral life. We are not here seeking a perfect indi- 
vidual, or even a perfect person, but simply a real person. 
In convenient phrase, the state of consciousness in self- 
estimate may be expressed thus: “I am not like this— 
nor like this—nor like any of these—this is what I am.” 

Consideration of Self-consciousness. By self-conscious- 
ness some writers mean no more than I mean by self- 
grasp. The terminology is not of extreme moment, if 
we only in some way keep self-estimate as an important 
feature of personality ; but, after much testing, I must my- 
self regard normal seif-consciousness as having two sides, 
necessarily interlaced, self-grasp and self-estimate. At 
one stroke in consciousness you get both an entity and a 
peculiarity. The instant you think, “I am not this,” 
you also think, ‘I am not like this.’ In every full act of 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 23 


self-consciousness, I hold, a person must consider himself 
as existing—in peculiarity. 

The Culmination in Self-decision. The final feature in 
personality is the power of self-decision. So very im- 
portant is this feature that writers with the tendency of 
Maine de Biran make it basal in personality. And even 
Julius Miller held that there could not be self-conscious- 
ness without self-determination, the two always “ making 
their appearance together.”’ To me, however, self- 
consciousness seems to be psychologically the more 
fundamental; and I would say that sometimes there is 
self-consciousness without any such volition as amounts to 
self-decision. And yet self-decision is the most important 
feature of the entire personal process, and for the simple 
reason that it is the culmination. What, then, do we 
mean by this term ‘‘self-decision’”’? Whenever we will 
anything, supremely conscious of self, that volition is 
self-decision. It is not, as certain theologians teach, 
the quality of the end-in-view, but just intense self-con- 
sciousness alone, that turns an impersonal volition into 
a self-decision. Nor is self-decision any decision made 
by a person. A person can will and does will many 
things, yes, and many important things, which are 
not self-decisive. I would dare to say that in the last 
third of the battle of Waterloo not one order came out 
of the personality of Napoleon. In truth, the victory 
was due not so much to the important fact that Well- 
ington and Blicher were there as to the much more 
important fact that, in full selfhood, Napoleon was not 
there! Weare not now considering personal responsibility, 
but long before we are ready to consider it we need to see 
that countless volitions are not true expressions of person- 
ality. Again, then, what is self-decision? This: Whenever 
aman sees himself out there as an existing, isolated, peculiar 
individual, and then, in the flash of that vision of self, 


24 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


wills anything, that volition is self-decision. The person 
first makes himself the clear, full object of his own thought, 
and then makes that definite point of his person the 
original initiative of his choice. And so the significance 
of self-decision becomes tremendous because the decision 
is charged with the conception, with the entire valuation, 
which the man has of himself. The state of consciousness 
in self-decision may be expressed thus: ‘I—just this 
separate and peculiar myself—will do this.” 


FORMAL SCHEME OF THE PERSONAL PROCESS 


I. THE Process IN OUTLINE 
1. The process begins in self-separation of the lowest degree; where 
there is a bare distinction in consciousness between subject and 
object. 
2. The psychological basis of personality is in the power— 
(1) Of self-grasp 
(2) Of self-estimate 
3. The process culminates in self-decision. 


t interlaced in self-consciousness. 


II. DEFINITIONS IN APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 

1. An organtsm is a complex of essential parts; all the parts in 
dependent reciprocity; and every part making constant contribution 
to a common end. 

2. An individual is any item that cannot be divided without losing 
identity. 

3. A man, fundamentally considered, is an organic individual that 
is a person. Or, a man is a personal, organic individual. 

4. A person is any being having capacity for personality. 


III. DEFINITIONS OF PERSONALITY 
1. Analytical Definition. 
Personality is the power of self-grasp, self-estimate, and self- 
decision. 
2. Concise Definition. 
Personality is the power of self-conscious decision. 
3. Popular Definition. 
Personality is the power to think, ‘‘Of myself I will do this 
thing.’’ 
IV. Finat DEFINITION OF A PERSON 
A person is any being capable of self-conscious decision. 


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une idée que la mer de revenir a un rivage. 

Pour le matelot, cela s’apelle la marée; pour le coupable, 

cela s’apelle le remords. Dieu souléve l’A4me comme I’océan. 
—Victor Hugo, Une Tempéte sous un Crane. 


Men get embarrassed by the common cases of a misguided con- 
science; but a compass may be out of order as well as a conscience, 
and the needle may point due south if you hold a powerful magnet 
in that direction. Still, the compass, generally speaking, is the true 
and sure guide, and so is the conscience; and you can trace the de- 
ranging influence on the latter quite as surely as on the former.— 
Thomas Arnold, Life and Correspondence, from a letter dated October 
21, 1836. 


This secret consciousness it is, of variance from the only [frue, of 
distance from the only Real, of alienation from the only Holy, which 
wakes up at the touch of human suffering and fear, and turns them 
from a bare quivering of the flesh into a fruitful anguish of the spirit. 
It is by appealing to this that the true prophet breaks the contented 
sleep of instinct—rings the alarm in the chambers of the soul—flings 
the animal nature convulsed with shame upon the ground, and by a 
purifying sorrow lifts it up into responsible manhood. In vain 
would the preacher light his torch from the fires of hell did he address 
only physical susceptibility and abject consternation; it is the moral 
history written within, the felt interval between what is and what 
might have been, which these things passionately express and which 
make them credible at all—James Martineau, The Seat of Authority 
in Religion, pp. 452, 453. 


With regard to nature, it is experience, no doubt, which supplies 
us with rules, and is the foundation of all truth; with regard to moral 
laws, on the contrary, experience is, alas! but the source of illusion; 
and it is altogether reprehensible to derive or to limit the laws of 
what we ought to do according to our experience of what has been 
done.—Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, the Miller 
translation, p. 259. 


Ill. THE MORAL PERSON 


WuiLe fundamentally a man is a person, actually he 
is more—he is a moral person. At times he is not only 
self-conscious, but also conscious of a peculiar back- 
ground of moral demand. This moral background we 
call conscience. 

In an address, delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, 
March 25, 1879, James Freeman Clarke tried to prove 
that dogs have conscience. In point, he told the au- 
dience of a dog that was punished for stealing a piece of 
meat. A day or two after the punishment the dog stole 
another piece. Mr. Clarke, unaware of the second theft, 
came quite suddenly upon the dog and began to pet him; 
but, strangely enough, he slunk away like a culprit. 
“This,” said Mr. Clarke, “convinced me that the dog was 
conscience-stricken.” But it convinces me of no such 
thing. It is nothing but an instance of associational 
fear. The dog was punished for taking the meat; and 
after that experience he associated the taking of meat 
with the pain of the punishment; and Mr. Clarke’s sud- 
den appearance brought to mind the association as fixed ; 
and the fondling was not sufficient to break the fixture. 
When the dog slunk away he was in no moral distress at 
all. 

To understand the work of conscience it is first of all 
necessary to see that moral distress never comes from 
associational mechanism. In moral distress a man is 
not afraid of any external tribunal. He is afraid of an 
inner, spiritual tribunal. At times, indeed, a conscience- 
stricken person seeks, actually seeks, exposure and public 
castigation in his endeavor to escape the awful forensic 


28 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


condemnation within. Rather would he suffer any 
possible external penalty than endlessly to endure this 
mysterious, searching, unpliable presence that says in 
his soul, ““ You did wrong!”’ Moral distress is a feeling of 
self-blame under the notion of right and wrong. 


Tue Notion oF RIGHT AND WRONG 

The notion of right and wrong is a personal intuition 
that there is the right and the wrong; that the two are 
absolutely antagonistic; and that a person ought to do 
the right. There is, therefore, in the intuition an insist- 
ence upon three notes—existence, antagonism, and ob- 
ligation. But this insistence upon the existence of right 
and wrong is entirely empty of concreteindication. Con- 
science never tells us what is right, or what is wrong. We 
have simply the unfilled notion that something is right 
and we ought to find it and take sides with it; and then 
we ourselves fill up that empty moral form and get a 
concrete moral obligation. This content—this ‘what of 
moral concern’’—is naturally a varying thing; sometimes 
determined by powerful influences belonging to our en- 
vironment; at other times determined by long, careful 
personal search and practical tests; and not infrequently 
determined, as I believe, by desperate, willful dashes at 
duty. Once clearly grasp this distinction between the 
intuitive, unfilled notion of right and wrong and the same 
notion applied, filled up, rendered concrete, and you can 
begin, anyway, to appreciate man’s pathetic moral 
history. Men have always agreed that there is a right; 
but never yet have they agreed as to what is right. 

Take the case of our civil war. Beneath the political 
question which had come down to us from the conflict 
between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson was 
the moral question of slavery. But slavery as a positive 
wrong was not the bottom of the ethical situation. That 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 29 


bottom—‘the unspeakable sorrow of the war’’—lay in 
the fact that the deadly struggle was between brothers, 
all believing in the right, and all seeking the right, and 
yet entirely unable to agree as to what was right. Inone 
of his later books Mr. W. D. Howells has written these 
words: ‘In the South there was nothing but a mistaken 
social ideal, with the moral principles all standing on 
their heads in defense of slavery.” It is as much as 
twenty-five years too late to write such careless words. 
They are inadequate and even misleading. We must not 
for one instant fail to recognize the truth that there was 
just as much moral purpose in the South as there was in 
the North. The trouble was not in moral character, but 
in the moral judgment by which the empty notion of the 
right gets its concrete application. 


THE INSTITUTION OF TABOO 

This institution, found in the customs of certain savage 
tribes, is, I believe, the crudest expression of moral life. 
A “thing taboo” is considered dangerous, so very danger- 
ous that one must not touch it or even look at it. A 
corpse, a newborn child, shed blood, a sick person, and 
hundreds of other things and persons are taboo. Mr. 
Frazer tells of an Australian who discovered that-his wife 
had been lying on his blanket and “died of terror in a 
fortnight.” In his Magic and Religion, Andrew Lang 
gives a utilitarian explanation of this institution. He 
says that these taboos were sanctioned by the tribal 
counselors as the result of experience, not their own, 
perhaps, but that of the clairvoyants, and other ministers 
of mystery. ‘Other taboos, as to women, are imposed 
for very good reasons, though not for the reasons alleged ; 
and broken taboos are not (in actual ordinary experience) 
attended by penalties, which, however, suggestion may 
produce,” 


30 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Over against this utilitarian explanation, I wish to 
quote a passage from Principal Jevons’s Introduction to 
the History of Religion: ‘‘How primitive man settled 
what things were not to be done there is no evidence to 
show. We will therefore content ourselves with the fact 
that as far back as we can see in the history—or rather 
the prehistory—of man taboo was never grossly material. 
It marked the awe of man in the presence of what he 
conceived—often mistakenly—to be the supernatural; 
and if his dread of contact with blood, babes, and corpses 
appears at first sight irrational, let us remember that in 
these, the three classes of objects which are inherently 
taboo, we have man in relation to the mystery of life and 
death, and in his affinity to that supernatural power which 
he conceived to be a spirit like himself. The danger of 
contact with the objects is ‘imaginary,’ if youlike, but 
it is spiritual; that is, it is the feeling that experience— 
sense-experience—is not the sole source or final test of 
truth, and that the things which are seen bring man 
daily into relation with things unseen. For, once more, 
the essence of taboo is that it is a priori, that without 
consulting experience it pronounces certain things to be 
dangerous. These things, as a matter of fact, were in a 
sense not dangerous, and the belief in their danger was 
irrational, yet had not that belief existed there would be 
now no morality, and consequently no civilization.” 

Principal Jevons has, it seems to me, said the pro- 
founder thing; but I am not satisfied with either of the 
two interpretations of taboo. This institution is really a 
complex thing. Sometimes it is nothing but superstition, 
and in such cases it is to be explained as any superstition 
is explained by man’s natural fear of anything he deems 
supernatural. At other times taboo rises into the realm 
of the spiritual must and must not. And here, in the upper 
region of the institution, there are manifested two very 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 31 


different things: 1. On the surface, the taboo item—the 
blood, the corpse, the babe; and, 2. The taboo principle, 
namely, that some things are not to be done because they 
cannot be done without an inner, spiritual peril. And 
when I try to analyze this sense of spiritual peril I find 
not a mere fear of the supernatural as mystery, but a fear 
of the supernatural as making a masterful demand upon 
man’s life. And such a fear of such a master in spiritual 
demand is, I am quite sure, the first movement in moral 
distinction—‘“‘the sunrise of the term Ought.” Then, 
the expression of this taboo principle in the taboo item 
is determined in all sorts of ways; now, as Mr. Lang says, 
by the tribal counselors and clairvoyants and ministers 
of mystery; and now by pure accident worked over in indi- 
vidual imagination. But the reason why there can be 
any taboo item, the reason why it can be manufactured, 
the reason why it can be accepted at all, is that the in- 
tuitive experience of the savage has already yielded the 
taboo principle. In other words, I discover in savage 
life precisely what we find in higher human life, an intui- 
tive, empty moral notion made concrete in manufactured 
items. 
ConscIENCE ANALYZED AND RELATED 

In conscience proper there are three features only, 
namely: 1. Moral distinction; 2. Moral obligation; and 
3. Moral settlement. 

Moral Distinction. As already stated, every man 
makes an intuitive distinction between the right and the 
wrong. In doubt he may be, or completely misled, as to 
what is right or wrong, but ever is he personally sure that 
something is right and its opposite is wrong. Notice 
that I say “personally sure,” for by this I wish to limit 
the certainty. This distinction is possible to man not as 
a conscious individual, but only as a self-conscious person. 
I claim simply this much, that no man in a normal 


32 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


condition is ever fully self-conscious without feeling moral 
distinction; that no normal man is ever sure of himself 
without at the same time being sure that there is a right 
and a wrong. In another connection the notion of the 
right will be more profoundly considered; here it must 
suffice to say that to the ordinary man this notion is an 
ultimate notion, like the notion of being itself, incapable 
by him of further analysis and definition. To him the 
right is right not because it is useful, not because it is 
beautiful—the right is right simply because it is right. 
Moral Obligation. Nor can a person, in a normal con- 
dition, have this intuition of moral distinction and not 
also have a sense of obligation toward the right. The 
instant the right says to a man, “I am,” it also says, 
“ You ought.”” When we most searchingly analyze this 
sense of moral obligation, we find in it three momenta, 
the obligation of allegiance, the obligation of search, and 
the obligation of action. In an ample moral life the 
person feels that it is not enough to join the right when 
seen; he should search until he finds out what is right, 
and then express his discovery in the finest moral conduct. 
Moral Settlement. After any personal volition under 
the sense of moral obligation, there is always an inner 
ictic settlement with the person. If he has willed against 
his obligation, he has distress of spirit ; if he has been true 
to his obligation, he has a flash of moral content. The 
transient and partial nature of this settlement needs firm 
insistence, for no man can come to abiding moral peace 
by doing one right deed, however heroic that deed may 
be. 
The Coworkers with Conscience. With conscience there 
are two coworkers, namely: 1. The judgment, by which 
the man decides whether a given matter is right or wrong; 
and, 2. The will, by which the man makes a choice 
among the possible courses of action. In popular speech 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 33 


the judgment is considered a part of conscience; but, 
strictly speaking, there is no moral quality in the judg- 
ment; it is moral only in the loose sense that it is now 
dealing with moral matters. A man does not have two 
faculties of judgment, but merely one faculty performing 
two kinds of task. To make the judgment an integral 
feature of conscience is no more reasonable than it would 
be to regard the will as an integral feature because it 
makes volition in moral relations. 

The actual coworking in a typical situation would be 
essentially like this: The man would come to his case 
thinking, ‘There is a right course here somewhere, and I 
must find it and take it.” Then in search he uses his 
judgment and sooner or later decides, “That is the right 
course.”” The moment he makes this decision he feels an 
inner moral urgency as definite as this, “You ought to 
take that course.” Then he wills one way or the other, 
and the ictic settlement follows. 


CONSCIENCE AND EDUCATION 


The question often comes up, Can conscience itself be 
improved by education? If by the term education the 
questioner means mental development, enlargement in 
knowledge, and the refinement of taste, the answer must 
be, “Not directly.” We do not, simply by intellectual 
progress, simply by knowing more and more, simply by 
access of culture, get a clearer moral distinction, a larger 
sense of moral obligation, and a swifter and sharper 
moral settlement. Always is it possible, alas! to have 
life filled with schools and libraries and science and 
invention and art—yes, and even with philanthropy 
“touching human suffering with its merciful hand’’—and 
yet not have much moral concern. Civilization and 
morality are by no means interchangeable terms. 

But conscience is strengthened or weakened under the 


34 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


law of use; and for use there must be motive; and motive 
is entangled with opinion; and opinion is often most 
vitally related to the peculiarities of our educational en- 
vironment. For example, there can hardly be any 
serious question but that the modern man is losing the 
most delicate sense of moral obligation; and I am very 
sure that this loss is closely connected with the fatalistic 
teaching of our time. Such books as Der alte und der 
neue Glaube and Die Weltrathsel have been published in 
popular form and sold by the thousand; our colleges and 
universities have made attractive those theories in natural 
science, and those theories in ethics, which do not leave 
even a clinging-spot for any personal responsibility ; and 
the theologians and preachers have, some of them, added 
an atmosphere of unethical impotence by their ceaseless 
doctrinal mitigations. As to that masterly work in 
superficiality, ‘“the new psychology,” it is difficult fairly 
to estimate the sum total of its influence. There are 
students who are not harmed by it in the least; there are 
other students, however, who cannot live so continuously 
in the physical scene and not lose regard for the spiritual 
springs of moral life. As one teacher has wittily said: 
“Many a man feels himself discharged from responsibility 
when once he can describe himself.’’ 

But in relation to education, the more important 
feature is the judgment. So thoroughly is a man’s 
judgment in moral matters a result of the educational 
influences about him that we could almost say, “Show us 
fully a man’s history and his immediate environment, 
and we can point out the peculiarities of his moral judg- 
ment.” We cannot quite say that, for even in moral 
judgment there is sometimes ‘‘a personal equation”’ of 
large account. 

Now we are ready, I think, to appreciate the full con- 
sequence of this analysis by which the moral judgment 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 35 


is separated from the elements of conscience proper. 
With such a separated judgment, not only does a more 
precise and fitting psychology become possible, but also 
we relieve the moral side of man’s nature from the charge 
of being a shifting, worthless indicant, and place the inher- 
ent weakness in his mental life where it belongs. 


DEFINITIONS OF CONSCIENCE 


Analytical Definition. 

Conscience is the entire moral sense of the moral person, con- 
sisting of three features, namely: 

1. The power to distinguish between the right and the wrong 
as two eternally antagonistic principles. This feature is moral 
distinction. 

2. The power to feel a personal obligation to join the right, 
to find the right, and to do the right. This feature is moral 
obligation. 

3. The power to feel self-blame, or moral content, in conse- 
quence of personal conduct. This feature is moral settlement. 

Concise Definition. 

Conscience is the power to feel the right and the wrong, with a 

sense of personal responsibility, both before and after conduct. 
Popular Definition. 

Conscience is the moral voice in a man which says, “* You 

ought.” 






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_ FREEDOM, PERSONAL AND MORAL 





From all this, there results the conclusion that without free volition 
there can be no justice, no satisfying the moral sense, no retributive 
system, no moral government, of which the creature can be the rightful 
subject, or God the righteous Administrator. The existence of a 
system, and the existence in the soul of man of a demand for a sys- 
tem combining these elements, demonstrates the reality of voli- 
tional freedom. Either there is no divine government or man is a 
non-necessitated moral agent.—Daniel D. Whedon, last words in his 
work on The Freedom of the Will. 


_ Freedom, then, is a point upon which we can allow no shuffling or 


_~ juggling in argument. It is unique, but it is self-evident; and every 


attempt to explain it away can be shown to involve a petitio principii, 
or begging of the question.—/J. R. Illingworth, Personality, Human 
and Divine, Bampton Lectures, 1894, p. 107. 


The truth, I think, is simply this: All determinism, strictly con- 
strued and logically carried to its issue, ends in materialism. Why 
should its advocate be afraid or ashamed of the issue he has himself 
forced? Surely, the last thing to go, in any system or practice of 
morals, should be that honest manliness which stands upright in the 
positions which have voluntarily and deliberately been assumed. 
And to fear being called a name which one merits is as cowardly as 
to call another an opprobrious name which is not appropriate or 
deserved.—George Trumbull Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, p. 180. 


Why, then, if law and order are only intelligible as the outcome of 
intelligence, may we not regard each individual subject, everything 
that is anything for itself and in itself, as a living law, or if you will 
as an active essence or character, interacting in its own peculiar 
manner with other subjects equally determinate? With experience 
in the concrete, we can deal satisfactorily in no other way, and no 
competent thinker dreams of interpreting the history of the world 
by means of a scheme of universal laws. . . . Such a view you will 
say is incompatible with the scientific conception of law, for that 
postulates necessity, whereas this lets contingency into the very heart 
of things. It is true: I not only admit it, but contend that any other 
world would be meaningless. For the contingency is not that of 
chance, but that of freedom; so far as everything that is, is a law in 
itself, has an end for itself, and seeks the good. . . . No sane man 
resents as constraint normal laws of thought, normal laws of conduct, 
normal laws of taste; or demands that truth, goodness, or beauty 
should be other than they are. Real freedom consists in conformity 
to what ought to be. For God, whom we conceive as essentially 
perfect, this conformity is complete; for us it remains an ideal. But 
were we created of a blind mechanical necessity, there could be no 
talk of ideal standards, either of thought or of conduct; no meaning 
in reason at all_— James Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, ii, 280, 281. 


IV. FREEDOM, PERSONAL AND MORAL 
PERSONAL FREEDOM 

PERSONAL freedom is implicit in personality itself. By 
personality I always mean the power of self-conscious 
decision; and such decision is, in the very nature of the 
case, free decision. In other words, in full self-conscious- 
ness a man is thoroughly cut free, in thought, from the 
overriding of nature, and can now make an original de- 
cision from the standpoint of self-realization ; and this being 
thus free from coercion, and so enabled to deal freely with 
all motives and to make a choice in the very center of 
selfhood, is precisely what I understand by personal 
freedom. But let us come closer to the process by which 
freedom is achieved. 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF FREEDOM IN THE PERSONAL 
PROCESS 


Motive. A motive is anything which urges one toward 
volition. Usually many and fine distinctions are made 
at this point, but they are not necessary in our discussion, 
and are, moreover, likely to create confusion. The so- 
called “strength of a motive”’ is nothing but the charge of 
sensibility by which a motive gets its peculiar degree of 
urgency. Itis the pushing power of the motive in feeling; 
or, to use Jonathan Edwards’s exact words, “‘some sort 
and degree of tendency or advantage to move or excite the 
will.’”’ That is, the pressure of any given thing toward 
volition is simply the amount of interest one has in that 
thing. And so, what is a strong motive toone man may 
be a weak motive to another man, inasmuch as one man 
may have an intense interest where another man is net 


40 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


beyond indifference. Let us, then, hold this much fast: 
not a motive’s origin, not its position in a rational classi- 
fication, not its force in the soul of a saint, but just its 
urgency in this one particular man, is the really important 
matter. A man now loves what he loves, likes what he 
likes, feels what he feels; and out of this present interest 
he gets all the pressure he has toward volition. Neither 
rational quality nor moral quality adds an atom to the 
strength of a motive, if a man cares for neither. And so 
you never can tell what the strength of a motive is by 
abstract comparison and estimate under rational rule. 
You must see the motive quiver and lift and urge in the 
heart of the individual man. 

The Blockade of Motive. This place is crucial. When 
we feel the urgency of our present motives—when all 
our clashing interests are pushing the will—why are we 
not, as the necessitarians claim, driven by the strongest 
motive irresistibly on to an immediate choice? Why is 
it not necessary for a person to will the thing in which at 
the moment he has the greatest interest? I answer: 
Because in the protective action of personality under 
pressure there is a complete blockade of all motive. 
Personality is inherently obstinate. It is made to resist 
all destructive influence. Whenever we are conscious of 
self and are urged to make volition we first of all tighten 
self-grasp, and this for an instant holds all inclination in 
check. Stated in another way, I holdthat any pressure 
toward self-decision first so intensifies self-consciousness 
that the vision itself blocks the urgent motive. Dr. 
John Miley, in his discussion of the freedom of choice, 
calls this blockade of motive ‘“‘the rational suspension of 
choice.” He has a strong hold of the fact, but he so uses 
the word “rational’’ that it is misleading. The suspen- 
sion does render rational action possible, but the pause 
itself is, I am convinced, as automatic as the instant, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 4 


instinctive spring of a man to save himself in a physical 
emergency. Indeed, the worth of the pause to the cause 
of freedom lies altogether in its automatic necessity. It 
is like holding an excited child quiet by sheer force. The 
person is automatically held steady against the onrush 
of feeling until he can get his bearings, until he.can 
be rational, until he can make a truly personal de- 
cision. 

But, it is asked, can the power of habit be explained 
in harmony with this view? Easily enough. No person 
is ever swept away by a habit when he ts conscious of self. 
In any self-conscious mood he gets an opportunity to will 
against habit, and he can will against it, however strongly 
fixed, provided that after the blockade any motive urge 
him toward such volition. The difficulty is in carrying 
out the man’s free decision. And why is that so difficult? 
Because personality itself may have become so weak that 
the man cannot remain long enough in a self-conscious 
state. The practical efficiency of reform is very largely 
a matter of vitalizing personality itself. Right here we 
can begin to understand why philanthropic schemes are so 
often ineffectual; they lack the appeal to a super- 
natural power that alone can energize the entire per- 
son. 

The Uplift of Self-supremacy. This blockade of motive 
yields normally a potent result in consciousness. At a 
glance it can be seen that if we are to make any self- 
decision we need something more than the negative pos- 
sibility, something more than relief from coercion; we 
need courage. Motives might be blockaded forever, and 
yet if the person did not appreciate the fact he would not 
do anything ; he would loiter ina hopeless mood. Indeed, 
this experience of loitering indecision is often found among 
weary, discouraged men. They resist and resist, but they 
do not value their resistance; they do not believe in 


42 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


themselves; they do not rejoice in their manhood ; they get 
no uplift from realized self-supremacy; and then they 
become so tired of the triumphant stagnation that they 
welcome almost eagerly the old, wrong motives again. 
Is this not a true account of an experience which men 
sometimes have? Do they not return to sin, sometimes, 
not because they cannot resist the temptation, but 
because they are exhausted and hopeless? Never can 
we comprehend men, never can we help men profoundly, 
until we understand the dreadful impotence of this 
ennui of negative, half-personal victory. Could a man 
hold an avalanche in check, and just do that and no more; 
never once feel the joy of such resistance; never once feel 
that he could do other things and greater things because 
the avalanche could not sweep him away—we would 
hardly expect him to stay there forever just holding 
an avalanche in check! 

The worth, then, of self-consciousness lies not entirely 
in the way it creates resistance to motive and so protects 
a person from coercion, but in that protection together 
with the hopeful uplift which comes to the man in his 
new sense of self-supremacy. This uplift psychologically 
amounts, of course, to a new motive; but it is a motive 
which must follow the blockade when self-consciousness 
ts full, a motive which is inherent in the personal process 
when that process is normal. And we need ever to bear 
in mind that the personal process is not always normal 
any more than the moral process in conscience is always 
normal. 

The Selj-selection of Motive. In the uplift of this ex- 
perience of self-supremacy the personal selection of 
motive becomes possible. The person is now supreme, 
all his motives have been restrained, and his conscious- 
ness is astir with confidence, and he can look his motives 
over to choose and use any motive he has. He cannot 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 43 


create a motive, he cannot act without a motive; but in 
this state of self-conscious supremacy he can select any 
motive, high or low, weak or strong, which lies within his 
range of conscious interest. Themotive does not seize 
the man, but the man seizes the motive. And let it be 
said repeatedly, he seizes it not because it is the stronger, 
or the strongest, motive. Such may be his practical 
reason for the selection in a given case, but the practical 
reason is not causal, is not coercive. It is not true that 
a person must always will to do that which he has the 
greatest immediate interest in doing. Again and again, 
especially at the beginning of a moral struggle, a man uses 
a weak motive when the antagonistic motive is so strong 
as to be actually violent. 

But we have not yet reached the end. There is a 
profounder sense in which it is true that a person always, 
even in free action, uses his strengest motive. When a 
man has that uplift of self-supremacy he begins to care 
most for just that supremacy, and this new interest now 
becomes his supreme motive. But this supreme motive 
does not urge him toward any one of his definite inclina- 
tions, but simply toward original action in selection. 
Thus the person’s very freedom is under the very law 
the determinists constantly emphasize. 

The Enlargement of the Circuit of Interest. We are now 
come to one of the most interesting and valuable features 
of the entire process. The self-selection of motive 
granted, still the range of motive would often be narrowly 
limited, and a man’s personal life exceedingly barren, 
were there no way to enlarge immediately his circuit of 
interest. Some of the most painstaking students of the 
will have failed to discover how there is made perfect 
psychological provision for such enlargement; and yet 
the method is entirely patent in ordinary human expe- 
rience, namely, we borrow motives. While it always holds 


44 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


true that we cannot actually create a motive, yet the 
motives we have we can use in new combinations, new 
applications, new adjustments to the will. To make 
personal volition in a certain direction, it is not necessary 
to have a direct interest; it will answer quite as well to 
have an indirect or transferred interest there. Thus, 
one large motive is often made to urge on many uninter- 
esting items. Probably not one day of your life passes 
in which you do not do some things under the urgency of 
larger concern. You not only “hitch your wagon to a 
star,’ but all sorts of uncoveted drudgeries are drawn 
along, with some appreciable speed, by one motive, 
splendid up there in your little sky. That great Christian 
phrase, “For Christ's sake,” what does it mean but that 
a Christian man can always get a personal motive for a 
difficult deed by transferring some of his love for his 
Lord? 

Summary of the Entire Process. The achievement of 
personal freedom can be summarized as follows: When 
a person is self-conscious he meets all pressure upon his 
will by instant and automatic obstinacy which amounts 
to a perfect blockade of motive. Thus, there is secured 
a suspension of choice. Resulting from this suspension 
of choice there is normally in consciousness a personal 
uplift, an inspiring sense of self-supremacy. With this 
uplift into courage there comes into possibility the original 
choice or the self-selection of motive. Now, any motive 
in the conscious range can be selected, because it is not 
the quality or strength of the motive, but simply the 
choice of it, which satisfies the person’s paramount in- 
terest in self-supremacy. “It is not the motive, but the 
motive as it bulges with the originality of the man!” 
And even the range of motive itself can be forced out of 
fixture and enlarged, because the person is able to borrow 
and combine and readjust motives to the will. Such is 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 45 


the process by which a man is cut away fully from the 
coercive tangle of nature and achieves what we term 
personal or volitional freedom. And is it not as evident 
as sunlight that every movement in the process is but an 
implication of the personal process itself? The auto- 
matic obstinacy is the precise thing which renders final 
self-decision possible. And the self-selection of motive, 
the borrowing of motive, the original adjustment of 
motive to the will, is the initiative and quick nerve of self- 
decision. Technically, in discussion, the terms person- 
ality and freedom are not exact equivalents, inasmuch as 
in personality the emphasis is upon decision from the 
standpoint of self-consciousness, while in freedom the 
emphasis is upon decision from the standpoint of motive; 
but in either case there is both a practical and a psycho- 
logical implication of the other. In its very nature per- 
sonality is the power of volitional freedom, and this 
freedom is actually achieved in the personal process. 


DEFINITIONS OF FREEDOM 


Analytical Definition of the Actual Process. 

In the actual process of freedom there are four features, all 
implicit in the personal process itself, namely: 

1. The blockade of motive, or the suspension of choice by 
such a grasp of self as amounts to a complete automatic resistance 
of all motive-pressure. 

2. The uplift of self-supremacy, or the new realization in con- 
sciousness that the person cannot be overwhelmed. 

3. The self-selection of motive, or the original choice, for 
direct or indirect use, of any motive in the person’s circuit of 
conscious interest. 

4. Self-conscious decision, or the preparatory self-selection of 
motive together with the full volitional use of the motive se- 
lected. 

Concise Definition of Inherent Freedom. 

Personal freedom, inherently considered, is the power to use 

uncoerced any motive given in self-consciousness. 
Popular Definition. 

Personal freedom is the power to will to do anything in which 

one has interest. 


46 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


MoraL FREEDOM 


As personal freedom is the volitional freedom of a 
person, so moral freedom is the freedom of that person 
regarded as moral. That is, the question of freedom is 
now to be related to the standard of right and wrong. 
First let us be sure that we all understand the practical 
contention. Dr. James M’Cosh says: “It is implied 
farther that the choice lies within the voluntary power of 
the mind, and that we could have willed otherwise, if we 
had pleased.” The expression “if we had pleased” is 
pliable and can be made to lend itself to sheer necessi- 
tarianism. We could say of a fishhawk swooping at a 
trout, ‘‘ He could have willed otherwise, if he had pleased.”’ 
The trouble is that with the trout in sight the hawk could 
not be pleased with anything else. So in the case of a 
man, the first question is not, Could he have willed other- 
wise, if he had pleased? but, Could he have pleased to will 
otherwise? Could he, with crossing pleasures, have made 
a choice uncoerced? And, then, what we insist upon is 
precisely this: A self-conscious person, under moral de- 
mand, can decide to do right, or decide to do wrong, 
when in the same personal situation, with the same range 
and condition of motives, he could will to the contrary. 
Or this way: Given here and now any self-conscious per- 
son under any appreciated moral demand, he can, just 
as he is, will either way, for the demand or against it. 
To keep Dr. Whedon’s terse expression, the man has 
“ either-causal power.” 

Moral Responsibility. Moral freedom and moral re- 
sponsibility are so inextricably connected that neither 
is possible without the other. It is axiomatic in morals 
that no man can be held responsible for that which he 
could not help. In one case there is a seeming exception, 
namely, where the volition automatically springs out of 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 47 


habit; but we must remember that habit itself is fixed by 
a long series of volitions. A man may be responsible for 
even an automatic manifestation of habit, if the habit 
itself is a rut of inability superinduced by self-conscious, 
intentional action. As Dr. Whedon says, “A servant may 
not cut off his hands and then hold himself innocent 
for not laboring.” 

Responsibility for Personal Character. This reference 
to habit opens up the way for the discussion of the larger 
responsibility for personal character. The principle here 
is that a person is responsible not only for what he 
freely does, but also for all he himself is as a consequence 
of what he has freely done. Our personal deeds not only 
tend to fix those physical and mental habits which play 
such a large part in external conduct—these deeds also 
tend to fix the great inner habit of personal bearing in 
indorsement. A man, as we usually find him, has two 
kinds of character: First, he has his character as a bare 
individual. This individual character comprises all his 
individual traits, the entirety of his native characteristics. 
For this individual character as such no man is responsi- 
ble any more than a walrus is responsible for having 
tusks. All argument to the contrary is a contribution 
to chaos in ethics. Second, a man has his character as 
a person. This is his. personal character; or, if we are 
regarding it from a moral standpoint, it is his moral char- 
acter. Personal character does not necessarily com- 
prise all of a man’s individual traits, but comprises those 
traits merely to the extent of their actual personalization ; 
_ or only in as far as they have been indorsed by the person 
when self-conscious. Soon we shall see how all self- 
conscious action tends to fix the state of motivity; here 
I wish only to make the point that a man gets at last an 
habitual responsible personal bearing toward his individ- 
ual characteristics. 


48 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


This difference between a man’s individual character 
and his personal character I wish more earnestly to urge 
upon you. Do you not see that a man may inherit 
characteristics which he himself condemns in every self- 
conscious mood of his life? For example, take the 
generous temperament. Oftentimes it is an inherited 
thing purely and has no organic relation whatever to 
personal character. Here are two men. One of them 
is a saint, and that by the testimony of every man, 
woman, and child living about him; and yet he says: “I 
never give away money joyously, seldom easily, and at 
times it costs me positive torment.’’ The other man is, 
by his own confession, a scoundrel, and yet he is so gen- 
erous that it was said of him, ‘‘Only look at him, and he 
will get his check book.’’ The niggard, in spite of his 
natural disposition, has, I say, moral worth in personal 
character, while the scoundrel’s easy generosity is no 
more moral than the dropping of a ripe pippin into the 
grass. Matthew Arnold was never weary of reiterating 
that ‘conduct is three fourths of life.’”’ I object to the 
phrase. It is ethically shallow. Conduct is of large 
moment when, and only when, it truly expresses personal 
intention. Most seriously I say it, conduct full of flaw, 
with a man behind the conduct hating the flaw, means 
more morally, and so means more ultimately, than the 
finest combination of native traits instinctively used 
without any personal adoption. Browning somewhere 
Says it is “not what man does which exalts him, but 
what man would do!’’ It is not the deed as mere per- 
formance ; but the deed as an exponent of a man’s purpose, 
the deed as related to a man’s longing, the deed as an 
indication of a man’s ideal. Nothing could be more 
densely unfair than to sum up a man’s inherited items, 
and then to regard that irresponsible bundle of character- 
istics as the precise quantum of his personal character, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 49 


when there may not be one item in the whole bundle 
which the person really wants or which he will finally 
possess. 

_ An Old Allegory Revamped. In an Eastern country a 
young man was sitting by the sea, when there fell out of 
the sky into his hands a basket full of various threads. 
“Some were silk and some were cotton, some were stout 
and some were rotten.’’ Soon he heard a voice, low but 
distinct, saying, ‘““Spend the day weaving, my son.” 
And all day long the young man wove, taking one thread 
and rejecting another. At sunset a storm came up from 
over the sea and blew wildly through the night. At dawn 
the young man was still there by the sea, and with a 
woven mantle; but all the loose threads the wind had 
blown away. 

How Moral Character is Fixed. To complete our 
discussion of moral character, we need to see how such 
character can be absolutely fixed by the free use of mo- 
tives. I will state the case as concisely as possible. 

1. In the motivity of every moral person there are, at 
the beginning of test, two antagonistic groups of motives, 
the good and the bad. That is, any personal interest 
which can be related to conscience at all is necessarily 
either good or bad. 

2. By using any motive in either group, the motive so 
used is made stronger, and also the opposite motive, if 
there is one, is made weaker. Or, by rejecting a motive, 
it is made weaker, and also the opposite one is made 
stronger. That is, if you have an interest, and express it 
in specific volition, you will increase that interest and 
diminish any opposing interest; or vice versa. 

3. In this way, under the law of use, a motive can be 
emptied of all urgency. Thus unurgent, it is what some 
writers term ‘‘an objective motive”; but I prefer to call 
it an exhausted motive. 


50 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


4. The exhaustion of any one motive tends to exhaust 
all the motives in the same group. The moral life is so 
related that if you touch it anywhere you must influence 
the whole. For example, no man can lose all interest in 
honesty and not begin to lose his regard for truth. 

5. When the group entire of good motives, or of bad 
motives, is exhausted, then the person’s moral character 
is fixed beyond any possibility of change. In other 
words, when a self-conscious person has no interest in 
any good thing he is unalterably bad. The other side 
should be stated in a slightly different manner, thus: 
When a self-conscious person has no interest in anything 
which does or can antagonize the good he is unalterably 
good. 

This rationale of the ultimate stability of moral char- 
acter need not be modified in the least to fit the fact that 
motive can be borrowed ; for no motive can be so borrowed 
as to create a moral interest where the entire group is ex- 
hausted. Some hold, I know, that these exhausted or 
“objective’’ motives can again become personally opera- 
tive as long as they are conceptions remaining in the 
mind. For example, a man has lost all concern for 
chastity, but he still has a clear idea of virtue, and even 
remembers what the feeling was like when he himself was 
chaste: can this man, merely because he retains this clear 
conception and this vivid remembrance, will himself back 
into personal virtue? I answer: He cannot, unless he 
have remaining in him some moral feeling, some sense of 
moral obligation, a spark at least of kindred concern. 


THE PrRooFrs OF FREEDOM 
Volitional freedom is, as we have seen, bound up with 
the personal process itself, but beyond all this there are 
convincing proofs that man is free. Let us notice the 
most important of these proofs. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 51 


1. The Intuitive Sense of Freedom. Whenever a man 
is self-conscious, he has an immediate, an intuitive sense 
that he is free. Certainty as to this fact does not depend 
entirely upon one’s own experience, although that per- 
sonal experience alone must end, does end, all practical 
question. There is objective confirmation in the uni- 
versality of deliberation over opposite courses of action, 
for to explain such deliberation is impossible unless we 
grant to men an inner consciousness of freedom. “An 
intuition of freedom is the very nerve of deliberation.” 
Think of a citizen, for instance, trying to decide which 
way wisely to vote and yet never once feeling that he is 
able to make a free choice. Even such a fatalist as 
Spinoza says, “They think themselves free.” 

In his work The Methods of Ethics, Professor Sidgwick 
says: “I hold, therefore, that against the formidable 
array of cumulative evidence offered for determinism 
there is but one argument of real force, the immediate 
affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate 
action.’”’ Commenting upon this statement, the writer of 
a recent book says: ‘‘ Now, if it were really true that we 
have a consciousness of being free, in the sense in which 
this term has been used, this feeling would have as little 
weight, as a scientific proof, as the feeling that the sun 
moves around the earth has for astronomy.” Passing 
by the false assumption concealed in that expression, 
“scientific proof’’—an expression which lives an opulent 
life on extremely slender means—anyone looking closely 
can see that the analogy made by the writer is altogether 
misleading. The two things, the crude belief about the 
sun and the feeling about freedom, are not fundamentally 
alike. In one case there is an iuference from appearance; 
in the other case there is a personal intuition. No man 
ever had an intuitive “feeling that the sun moves around 
the earth.’”’ Observing certain phenomena, he drew a 


52 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


quick inference from the look of the thing. Sureiy the 
inference was naive, almost as naive as a baby’s finding 
a playmate in a looking-glass; but the principle used was 
the same as that constantly employed, not only in ordi- 
nary affairs, but also in scientific investigation. Now 
and then, indeed, we find even among scientists an 
exceedingly hasty inference which needs to be corrected. 
Mr. Darwin himself once drew precisely such a precipitate 
inference as to the sternum in poultry, and it was correct- 
ed by George John Romanes. But man’s intuitions are 
never corrected by a larger experience or by a later search. 
A savage immediately feels that a half is less than the 
whole, and the most civilized man to-day has the same 
instant, inner throb of certainty. Even our higher, our 
moral intuitions, while they may be lived out of vitality, 
are never corrected as our inferences are corrected. We 
correct our opinions, our theories, our fine schemes of 
harmony, our systems of theology, of philosophy, and of 
science, but no man ever has or ever can correct a per- 
sonal intuition. Were it worth the work, it would not be 
extremely difficult to search the writings of that great 
agnostic and heroic man who has now passed out into the 
silence beyond us, and show that either by intention or 
by accident he has expressed every intuitional feeling 
which can be found in an Omaha Indian. 

Our contention is that man as a person has an intuition 
of freedom; that whenever he is conscious of self, and by 
just the strength, just the vividness that he is conscious 
of self, he is conscious of freedom ; that only by destroying 
or mutilating personality itself can he escape from this 
intuition of freedom; and, further, that the very men who 
deny this fact for which we contend do, in spite of all 
their finesse in argument, evince, in all the practical 
matters of their life, the most unbounded confidence in 
‘their own personal freedom. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 53 


If, now, man as a person has such an intuitive sense of 
freedom, we should regard it as founded in integrity. To 
say with Spinoza that men have such a sense, but they 
are deceived, is not truly philosophical; for philosophy 
must fairly explain life, and such a fatalistic impeach- 
ment of the basal integrity of man’s experience leads to 
no just explanation of anything. In fact, if such unfaith 
were carried out to the utmost consistency, it would wreck 
not only all philosophy and all science, but also every 
practical department of human affairs. If we are to 
sail at all, we must trust the bottom of the ship! 

2. The Intuitive Sense of Responsibility. I cannot 
agree with Professor Sidgwick that against determinism 
we have ‘but one argument of real force, the immediate 
affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate 
action.’”’ After the action is all over, and oftentimes 
long after the action is over, there is a sense of personal 
responsibility for the action. Now, the bare testimony of 
self-consciousness is in adjustment with conscience, and 
the man regards himself as a free person under moral 
obligation. We are told by Professor Wundt and other 
psychologists of his school that the extent of the inner 
testimony is ‘‘ that we act without restraint.’”’ But such is 
not the testimony at all; self-consciousness testifies to 
“either-causal power,’’ or that, in the given situation, we 
can willin either direction. Allowing, though, this dubious 
inexactness to pass, these mediating psychologists should 
be criticized because they fail to realize that the full testi- 
mony of self-consciousness is seen most clearly when 
related to moral concern. Here, in this moral situation, 
a person feels that he is free unto—all the way unto— 
personal responsibility. Most tersely said, it is this: A 
man feels responsibly free. 

And now again our own isolated experience is reén- 
forced when we look out upon societary life and try 


54 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


rationally to explain that life. Study the entire matter 
of blaming men or praising men for their conduct; seek 
a rationale of public opinion; try to discover an adequate 
foundation for criminal law; and very soon it will become 
evident that in judging men for their deeds society but 
expresses, however imperfectly, an innate sense of man’s 
responsible freedom. It may be true, as the utilitarians 
claim, that the purpose of a criminal law is the protection 
of society. It matters not, though, what the purpose 
may be, the possibility of such law lies in the fact that 
a criminal may be justly punished because he is respon- 
sible, and he is responsible because he, this very man 
under these very circumstances, might have done 
otherwise. Once prove that he could not have done 
otherwise, that he was not personally free, that he was 
insane or in any manner completely overwhelmed, and 
whatever the technical outcome might be in the court, 
the higher court of public moral sentiment would hold 
the man as blameless. And every necessitarian on the 
face of the earth would also hold the man as blameless! 
And so we are come to this point : Not merely is volitional 
freedom essential to the integrity of man’s personal 
experience; it is essential to the integrity of that experi- 
ence as it is related to his higher moral experience. 

3. Freedom and Personal Loyalty. In a passage fre- 
quently quoted as one of Professor Huxley’s brightest 
and most characteristic utterances he says: “I protest 
that if some great Power would agree to make me think 
what is true and do what is right, on condition of being 
turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning 
before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with 
the offer.” There chances to be chiming at this very 
moment a clock which makes quite an approach toward 
Professor Huxley’s ideal. In perfect conformity to a 
number of physical laws, it does exactly certain very 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 55 


intricate things. And it is altogether conceivable that 
“some great Power” could exalt this mechanism into 
something higher and more marvelous, so that the clock 
would be forced to think and to will; and forced so to 
think and so to will as everlastingly to keep in adjust- 
ment with reality; yes, and forced so to think and so to 
will as actually to codperate with the moral plans and 
movements of the “‘ great Power,” and thus “‘like a planet 
take sides with God.” And yet this perfected clock, in 
its precise, automatic expression of its Maker’s purpose, 
would lack one thing, and this the very thing which 
Professor Huxley himself had in large measure, namely, 
personal loyalty. Who would not rather have Huxley 
as he was, loyal to the last fiber of manhood, writing to 
Charles Kingsley, “Still I will not lie!”” than to have this 
Huxleyan clock, wound up every morning, mechanically 
indicating truth and necessarily chiming moral maxims? 
With the perfected machine there would be no costly 
staying by the truth in self-conscious sacrifice; no taking 
sides with righteousness when one could take sides against 
it; no indorsement of an ideal in a free personal bearing 
—in short, no loyalty, and so no true moral heroism. 
Volitional freedom is not merely bound up with the 
integrity of self-consciousness and man’s sense of personal 
responsibility; it is absolutely necessary for the achieve- 
ment of any heroic moral character. 

4. The Fact of Error. Hardly can it be necessary to 
provide any elaborate evidence that there is error in the 
world somewhere. Probably even our necessitarian 
theologians would be willing to admit that their oppo- 
nents are mistaken! Look where you will, in society, in 
politics, in philosophy, in religion, and you will find 
almost countless opinions and convictions which cluster 
into contradiction. As to the fact of error, then, there 
can be no question; but how can we explain the fact? 


50 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


If determinism have the truth, then all error is auto- 
matic. Men are coerced into fallacy, yes, and into 
falsehood, too. Our search for truth thus becomes “a 
mock drama on a mimic stage,’’ where every puppet acts 
as the wires move. In such case there could be no stand- 
ard of truth. ‘All we could do would be to take a vote 
now and then over the question, What is truth? and even the 
ballot would be automatic.’ Indeed, volitional freedom 
is just as necessary for the explanation of man’s rational 
life as it is for his personal life and his moral life. As 
Professor Bowne has said in his convincing chapter on 
“Some Structural Fallacies’: “The only escape from 
the overthrow of reason involved in the fact of error lies 
in the assumption of freedom.” 

A Final Question. Inasmuch as personal freedom is 
intuitively affirmed in self-consciousness considered alone, 
and is again affirmed by self-consciousness when the 
person is under moral demand; inasmuch as freedom is 
essential to loyalty and moral character, and is just as 
essential in the explanation of our relations to truth and 
error—in a gathering word, inasmuch as personal free- 
dom is vitally conjoined with every fundamental feature 
of man’s being and is the only commensurate explana- 
tion of his experience, our final question amounts to this: 
Is our whole life as men a phantasmagoria with cunning 
deceptions everywhere, with cosmic equity nowhere? 
Determinism is really a scheme of unfaith, unfaith in 
man and unfaith in God. 


PERSONAL MORALITY 





To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man 
is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contem- 
plation of his most elevated and critical hour.—Heury David Thoreau, 
Walden. 

Go, and demand of him, if there be here 

In this cold abstinence from evil deeds, 

And these inevitable charities, 

Wherewith to satisfy the human soul? 
—William Wordsworth, The Old Cumberland Beggar. 


For it is to be remembered that moral qualities reside not in actions, 
but in the agent who performs them, and that it is the spirit or mo- 
tive from which we do any work that constitutes it base or noble, 
worldly or spiritual, secular or sacred. The actions of an automaton 
may be outwardly the same as those of a moral agent, but who at- 
tributes to them goodness or badness? . . . Many actions materially 
great and noble may yet, because of the spirit that prompts and 
pervades them, be really ignoble and mean; and, on the other hand, 
many actions externally mean and lowly may, because of the state 
of his heart who does them, be truly exalted and honorable.—John 
Caird, from a sermon preached before Queen Victoria; text, Rom 
12. 11. 


A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed 
to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to discern my own 
wretchedness. . . . And yet, strangely enough, I lived in a con- 
tinual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive 
of I knew not what; it seemed as if all things in the heavens above 
and the earth beneath would hurt me; as if the heavens and the earth 
were but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein I, palpitating, 
waited to be devoured. . . . I asked myself: What art thou afraid 
of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, 
and go cowering and trembling? ... Thus had the EvERLASTING 
No (das ewige Nein) pealed authoritatively through all the recesses 
of my Being, of my Me; and then was it that my whole Me stood 
up, in native God-created majesty, and with emphasis recorded its 
protest.—Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus. 


V. PERSONAL MORALITY 


BEFORE we can wisely discuss intrinsic morality,. we 
need to eliminate formal morality, or those empty forms 
of conduct which look moral but do not spring from right 
motive. In a sweeping way morality can be defined as 
conformity to the moral law as that law is understood 
in a given community. With this comprehensive defi- 
nition in mind, readily we can see that there is possible a 
merely external conformity; and when we closely study 
human life we find actual instances of such conformity. 
Of these superficial forms of morality there are at least 
two distinct kinds: 

1. Morality based upon self-advantage. A purpose of 
utility does not necessarily poison the quality of conduct. 
Utility may sometimes, indeed, furnish our only reliable 
test as to whether a course of action be right or wrong. 
But when the personal aim is to obtain self-advantage 
by using moral forms without having any moral intention, 
then the conduct, however noble in appearance, is ethic- 
ally worthless. For example, a short time before a close 
and important election in one of our cities, certain party 
managers yielded to public sentiment and checked a 
crying vice; but we now know that their moral alacrity 
was nothing but a political device. Not a man of them 
really cared for the moral law. 

2. Morality based upon inherited disposition. Already 
we have seen (in the discussion of Moral Freedom) that 
a man inherits many traits and that these traits do not 
always express what he is in personal and moral bearing; 
but the point is of such practical moment that I wish to 
touch it from another angle. One may inherit a dis- 


60 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


position, I say, which in its very nature is a formal moral 
bias, rendering it difficult for him not to conform at a 
particular point in moral demand. A man, for instance, 
might inherit a disposition so extremely gentle as to make 
it well-nigh impossible for him to commit murder. Wen- 
dell Phillips, as I once heard him tell it, tried one day to 
shoot a plover, and the act made him suffer so that never 
again would he engage in such sport. “That little, 
wounded, fluttering, helpless thing just looked at me and 
said: ‘When did I ever do you any harm?’” Cannot 
anyone see that a native disposition like that would 
practically prevent certain kinds of wrongdoing? Surely. 
But what we are not so sure to see is that under this very 
gentleness a man might not be truly kind and noble in 
person. He might be not only selfish, but actually 
malicious, and even cruel in some subtle manner. Wen- 
dell Phillips himself was a moral hero; but even in his 
case his natural gentleness was not a reliable index of his 
personal character. Any opponent relying upon that 
mild disposition would have been subject to disabuse- 
ment sudden and dire. Why, some of the worst women 
in all history have been in disposition like the saints of 
God, and because of this very fact they were the more 
dangerous. Again and again (and you must be made to 
feel this) the most noble features of individual character 
have been utilized to get a victory for some ignoble 
cause. And thus both kinds of formal morality can be 
combined, conduct based upon inherited disposition 
becoming conduct based upon both disposition and self- 
advantage. 

The Intrinsic Moral Deed. This deprecatory emphasis 
has been placed upon formal morality for two reasons: 
First, that we may be more discriminating in our esti- 
mate of the morality about us; that we may not be de- 
ceived and think that we are getting on in morals when 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 61 


we are only getting on in respectability. But, second, 
that we may appreciate the intrinsic moral deed when 
we have it before our eyes. Whenever a deed, whatever 
its form, is done, not because it is the point of least 
resistance, not because it receives commendation in 
society, not because it gains money or votes or influence, 
but directly and only because to us it is right, that deed is 
intrinsically moral. This statement I refuse to modify 
by so much as a stroke. Ethical teachers are constantly 
telling us that deeds are moral when and because they 
conform to standards of experience and contribute to 
human welfare. These standards and contributions, 
however, have to do with manifestation and not with 
spirit. They are societary, but not personal. They are 
important, but not profound. Deeds are moral, per- 
sonally moral, intrinsically moral, only when they ex- 
press a man’s own conception of duty, or his own feeling 
of moral love, as he has the conception or feeling when 
self-conscious. 

This distinction between spirit and manifestation is of 
the utmost practical importance also. Given the moral 
spirit, and you are certain finally to have the best ex- 
pression of it, for it is deep in the nature of the moral 
spirit to seek better and better ways of getting out among 
men. But the appearance can be had without one spark 
of the spirit; and when this is the fact—when you are 
working merely for individualistic ends, or for a friction- 
less society, or for an esthetic paradise, or even for a 
socialistic brotherhood—when you are working for any- 
thing short of fundamental personal righteousness—you 
are not doing one abiding thing either for the individual 
or for mankind. Man is too great to live on your utili- 
tarian schemes of makeshift. 

Continuity in Moral Bearing. This intrinsic moral 
deed has not, though, as an isolated point in conduct, 


62 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


any sufficient ethical worth. It is not enough to be true 
once in a lifetime. Perhaps no wreck of a man ever lived 
who had not in some flashing instant won a real moral 
victory. Nor is sporadic morality, or the doing of in- 
trinsic moral deeds now and then, of large ethical sig- 
nificance. The deeds are not joined, and so they do not 
express any continuity of personal intention. They are 
like some summer nights when the scene is intermittent 
with lightning. Now it is so light that one can pick up a 
pine needle, and then it is so dark that he cannot find the 
turnpike. In some way we must get out of our piece- 
meal luminosity. If we are to make any moral headway 
we need to have continuity in our moral bearing. 
Allegiance to the Moral Ideal. We can, I am quite 
sure, discover the steps by which a man passes out of 
sporadic morality. In the first place, he gets a vision 
of right as a totality. The earliest moral possibility in 
performance is to do right at one definite point. Then, 
as the developing person keeps on doing right, here and 
there, at definite points, there comes to him sooner or 
later a vision. He sees that to be honest and to tell the 
truth express the same fundament; he sees that rightness 
is one and whole. All this was in his original notion, was 
in the first beat of moral intuition, but it was infolded, 
and only now, in this new vision, does the full import 
open out. In the second place, the man obtains a moral 
tdeal. When he gets a vision of right as a totality he 
realizes that it is not enough to do right here and there, 
now and then, on concrete demand; he ought to be ever- 
lastingly committed to this total right. Thus he obtains 
a lofty moral ideal. In the third place, there is the 
actual commitment in personal allegiance to the moral 
adeal. Now the man passes out of sporadic morality. 
No longer is he satisfied with unjoined items of worthy 
conduct—with trying to-day not to lie and then to- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 63 


morrow not to steal; his aim is to be loyal to the right 
all the time. This bearing of personal allegiance to the 
moral ideal is the only thing worthy of being termed 
personal morality. 


ANALYSIS OF MORALITY 
1. Morality. ‘ 

In widest speech, morality is the individual conformity to the 
moral law as that law is understood and expressed in the ethical 
standard of a given community. 

2. Formal Morality. 

Wherever there is: such individual conformity without right 

motive the morality is only formal. 
3. The Intrinsic Moral Deed. 

Whenever there is conformity with right motive at any point 

of moral demand there is an intrinsic moral deed. 
4. Sporadic Morality. 

Intrinsic moral deeds done, without continuity in moral bear- 
ing, only to meet the demand of the immediate occasion, con- 
stitute sporadic morality. 

5. The Passage Out of Sporadic Morality. 

A man passes out of sporadic morality by three steps: First, 
the realization that the right is a totality; second, the realization 
that a man’s ideal moral life is nothing less than absolute and 
everlasting loyalty to the right as a totality; and, third, the 
actual, personal surrender to this ideal. 

6. Personal Morality. 

When a man aims to be perpetually loyal to all moral concern, 
in deed, in word, in principle, and in spirit, his bearing is personal 
morality. 


THE EXPANSION OF THE MorRAL Task 


This is a place of extreme difficulty. But the difficulty 
springs, not from the subject, not from any failure in 
fact, but altogether from the incapacity of the audi- 
ence. We live in a Christian atmosphere; and with 
many the natural moral process has been taken up into 
the swifter Christian process, and so the moral movement, 
as a peculiar and complete movement, does not stand out 
in memory. It is as though we attempted to describe 
the final scenery of a long highway to a man who had 
traveled the first third of the distance on foot and the 


64 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


remaining two thirds by express train. To him our 
account would be too minute and clearcut to be con- 
vincing. And, again, of the men about us who are not 
greatly influenced by Christian teaching, only a few ever 
grant the moral ideal full play in their life. Quickly 
they hide away from the searching flame. This retreat, 
this personal flinching under severe moral demand, is 
fostered by the spirit of the time. We live in an age of 
externality. In many ways the age is magnificent, but 
its standards are conventional, its tests objective. We 
no longer expect any great inner things of men. And 
this externality, this sheer conventionality of mood, 
means badly for the intrinsic moral life because it pays a 
premium for moral cowardice. 

The Servant of the Moral Law. If we try to find the 
dominant feature of personal morality we shall most 
certainly perceive it to be the realization that one is the 
servant of the moral law. And the most extraordinary 
emphasis should be placed upon that word servant. The 
man is not, like Goethe, seeking to enlarge, to perfect 
himself. He does not regard mankind as tributary to 
his own supreme development. He does not even say 
with Emerson, ‘‘ That can never be good for the bee which 
is bad for the hive.” If you take personal morality in 
any individualistic or in any utilitarian manner, you will 
entirely miss the noble fineness of its spirit. It is directly 
and constantly the spirit of service, the absolute service 
under moral concern. 

The Deepening of the Moral Deed. As a servant of the 
moral law, the person demands that his deed shall express 
the very spirit of righteousness. This does not mean— 
at least, usually it does not mean—that the man must 
reject the societary commonplaces as to ethical action. 
Rather is it likely to mean that he must reinterpret, that 
he must deepen these commonplaces. For example, hon- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 65 


esty in business cannot now be expressed by a transaction 
of scrupulous legality, while within the transaction there 
is concealed a plot to create an artificial stress in the 
market which will ruin a score of men. No profoundly 
moral man can plan the financial wreckage of a fellow 
trader, no matter what the law may say, and no matter 
what the societary view of it may chance to be. All this 
covert manipulation of stocks into arbitrary values; all 
this strategic campaigning to crush small merchants; all 
this building up of huge fortunes without regard to the 
daily needs of men, women, and children—yes, many 
things which are sanctioned in the business world and 
praised in the social world are to the servant of the moral 
law positively immoral. 

The New Test. In getting a deed adequate to express 
the very spirit of righteousness, the servant of the moral 
law must have a new test. Of course, he still uses his 
own moral judgment, as he used it in doing his first, 
isolated, intrinsic moral deed; but he uses it in this new 
spirit of service; with a most righteous ambition, namely, 
to glorify the totality of moral concern, to make the 
moral law absolutely supreme among men. In this spirit 
and with this ambition he feels what Immanuel Kant 
termed “the categorical imperative.”’ In various ways 
Kant was wont to affirm that the one perfect test of 
moral performance is that the embodied principle shall 
be meet for universal legislation. ‘How would this 
maxim, if universally adopted and executed, affect the 
moral welfare of men?”’ Thus Kant appropriated the 
only valuable thing (almost) there is in utilitarianism to 
deepen the moral deed; but he appropriated it without 
dropping any of his emphasis upon moral intuition. 

There is need here, however, of a word of close dis- 
crimination. The regard for men by the servant of the 
moral law is not a philanthropic passion for humanity, 


66 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


nor a Christian love for men because our Lord has re- 
deemed them; no, it is precisely a regard for men as the 
best method of serving the cause of righteousness. The 
new test is to be related to all men because nothing less 
comprehensive will fully express and exalt the spirit of 
moral concern. Once catch this distinction, and you can 
easily understand why, now and again, there is a great 
moralist who will live for men and make constant sacrifice 
for men, and yet not have any real sympathy for men. 
Not every abolitionist loved the negro. To some of them 
he was ‘“‘a strange, tormenting incubus”; but the spirit 
of righteousness was violated by slavery; the principle of 
slavery was not fit for universal application; and so the 
negro must be set free. With this discrimination in mind, 
it becomes possible to utilize the statement made by John 
Stuart Mill: ‘A morality grounded on large and wise 
views of the good of the whole.” 

The New Conception of Motive. But even Immanuel 
Kant did not see the profoundest feature in personal 
morality. The moral loyalist has now not only a new 
conception of the moral deed, and a new test to use in 
deepening the deed, but also a new conception of motive 
itself. In the old piecemeal life it was enough, if the 
initial motive-drive of an action was right, even if the 
main motive did take on imperfect accretions. The man 
never lit a lamp and held it steadily through the winding 
caverns of his deed. He was hesitant of any intro- 
spection. But now his consuming ambition is to serve 
righteousness, and it never can be completely served 
when a deed starts in the right and ends in the wrong. 
The ethical demand upon him now is to keep the whole 
complex motivity of his action as clean as blowing snow. 
This is saying no more than that he must be loyal to his 
ideal through the entire reach of his personal intention. 
For illustration: Suppose that I tried to rescue a man 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 67 


from debauchery, and my original motive was to make 
him moral, but in the days of effort there came, as an 
accretion, the desire to make out of the rescue ten thou- 
sand dollars; would that deed asa total satisfy the ideal in 
personal morality? The question requires no answer. 

But we are not done. This new demand as to motive 
really means an absolutely righteous man. To have a 
perfect moral deed, motived in purity from end to end, 
there needs to be behind the deed a perfect moral man; 
or, at least, a man whose entire motivity is so organic in 
relation to his personality that it ever works for moral 
concern. Here I barely touch the point to indicate the 
merciless sweep in the expansion of the moral task. In 
a word, I maintain that no man can pass through the 
moral process to the end—that no man can follow his 
moral leadings unflinchingly—and be personally content 
with anything short of absolute inner righteousness. In- 
stead of being an easy thing of palliation, real morality 
is a thing of the most strenuous exaction. 


THE ExPANDED Morat Task ImpossIBLE FOR MAN 

Steadily we have been moving from the beginning of 
personality on through man’s moral life, until now we 
reach a task for man which we instantly pronounce im- 
possible. But can we precisely locate the cause of the 
impossibility? Why is it that a servant of the moral 
law cannot satisfy his own ideal? Why is it that he can- 
not be a righteous man through and through? The 
theologians are ready with an answer. The failure, they 
say, is due to inherited depravity. Later we shall see that 
this answer has some truth in it. But this truth lies on 
the surface and does not expose the deep root of the fail- 
ure. Another answer sometimes given is essentially this: 
In a complicated situation the moral loyalist, truly to 
serve the cause of righteousness, needs a moral judgment 


68 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


as nearly perfect as possible; and he cannot be certain 
that he has such a judgment. Again and again in his 
anxiety he says: “Can I rely upon my judgment? Is 
my judgment what it ought to be? Have I so lived in 
all my past, have I so sought all light, have I so used every 
ray of light which has come to me, that my moral judg- 
ment is at its best?’’ If the questions can be answered 
by the anxious moralist at all they will be answered in 
the negative, and so moral content to him becomes im- 
possible. This answer is quite worth while, for it does 
explain some of the ethical distress of the servant of the 
moral law. Still it does not explain the fact that he 
never comes to peace; that even when there is no question 
as to the adequacy of the moral judgment, he has moral 
unrest. The flaw must lie deeper. 

In speaking of the new conception of motive which 
arises as the moral task expands, we really caught a 
glimpse of the profound flaw in personal morality. This 
flaw is the accretion of imperfect motive. Our initial motive 
may be splendid in its purity, but as we use it accretion 
after accretion is formed until our deed comes into port 
like a ship out of the tropics incrusted with barnacles. 
There are, in man’s natural experience, few things so 
utterly impossible as to do a great moral deed and keep 
it clean in all its relations to self-consciousness. In spite 
of all you can do, your mood will slip and some taint will 
steal in, and the very man who launched his deed in 
righteousness will sail it with a lower purpose. Leaving 
out the one motive of love, which will be considered soon, 
never in all my life have I severely scrutinized a good 
deed and been sure that it expressed from end to end 
my ideal of righteous conduct. Good deeds are of large 
value in several ways, but as a means of securing rest 
under a lofty standard of duty they are simply worthless. 
They may for a period keep a man so busy that he has no 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 69 


time to live with his own soul; but the first hour he looks 
his whole manhood squarely in the face he is bound to 
have distress. There are, I know, those who cultivate 
this ethical busyness and call it peace; but it is not per- 
sonal peace. It is as superficial as the quiet and sense of 
health a sick man may obtain by taking an opiate. Let 
it be ever understood that sooner or later a man must 
face his own soul and face it in the most searching mood. 
He was not created to live merely an objective life, and 
he cannot always be satisfied with bare busyness. 

In his Philosophy of Religion, speaking of the contra- 
diction between the lower and the higher elements in 
man’s nature, John Caird says: “But morality is, and 
from its nature can be, only the partial solution of that 
contradiction; and its partial or incomplete character 
may be said, in general, to arise from this, that while the 
end aimed at is the realization of an infinite ideal, the 
highest result of morality is only a never-ending ap- 
proximation to that ideal.” This is true, and yet it does 
not strike the definite reality. Man’s moral weakness 
does not, exactly speaking, spring from his finitude, nor 
from his finitude under an infinite requirement; but pre- 
cisely from this: Man cannot become an organic moral 
person under the moral law. As a self-conscious moral 
person, a man keeps yielding to conscience until he has 
a moral ideal to which he gives allegiance. With this 
personal allegiance, his task expands until he must, to 
satisfy his own standard, be righteous through and 
through. He tries to meet this demand, but he cannot 
organize himself about his main intention. He cannot 
control the deeps of his individuality. He cannot gather 
all his moods, all the flying moments of desire, all the 
dim, basic longings of his nature, all the subtle interlace- 
ment of body and soul—he cannot get together. 

The Taproot of Moral Concern in Man. But why can- 


70 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


not the servant of the moral law organize himself about 
his main intention? To answer this question, we must 
greatly deepen our discussion. We have analyzed con- 
science, and we have brought to light the process by 
which the loftiest moral ideal is reached ; but now we must 
do more, we must dare to ask the radical question, Why 
does a man have any concern whatever for this inner 
demand we call moral? To this most radical question 
all sorts of answers have been given. What is perhaps 
the most popular answer to-day amounts to this: We find 
in ourselves this ‘narrow and easily worried organ,” con- 
science, and simply try to make terms with it, try to get 
a bit of comfort under the tormenting peculiarity, very 
much as one might make frantic and idiotic gestures to 
relieve the cramp. Then, there are various answers which 
play a fugue about a thematic swmmum bonum. Fairly 
to treat all these answers and sift out the grains of truth 
would be necessary in a work of pure ethics, but is neither 
necessary nor helpful here. The positive path is better 
for us. The taproot of moral concern in man is, as I see 
it, this: His intuitive sense of belonging to the supernatural 
overmaster. Whenever a man becomes self-conscious of 
moral distinction he spontaneously feels that the right 
owns him beyond all natural claim. It is out of this 
sense of being owned that the definite feeling of obliga- 
tion springs. If we try to analyzethe whole mood we 
shall find in it the following features: 

1. There isa sense of the supernatural. What this term 
supernatural really means to a man I will more closely 
consider in another connection. Here it is sufficient to 
say that every unsophisticated man projects a supreme 
mystery beyond the realm of nature. His initial attitude 
is dualistic. He does not feel that the mystery beyond is 
“one with blowing clover and falling rain.’”” He has two 
worlds, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 71 


2. There is a sense of fitness. The word fitness is not 
quite adequate, but it must be made to serve. The 
man feels that this supernatural, this transcendent mys- 
tery is his own place. I would say his own home, but 
the word home is friendly; and the mandoes not feel, in 
his primary mood anyway, that the supernatural ‘is 
friendly. No, it is just this and no more: “‘I fit into that; 
I was made for that; my place is over there.’’ Precisely 
as a dolphin may feel that he is in fitness with the sea, 
or as a petrel may instinctively feel that the wild fling 
of the spray suits him, so a normal man intuitively feels 
that he fits into the vast mystery beyond nature, that the 
supernatural is in vital and necessary and everlasting 
conjunction with his being. 

3. There is the sense of the supernatural overmaster. 
Both of the feelings, that of the supernatural and that 
of fitness, are gathered up into one feeling, namely, that 
this non-natural mystery owns him, and so has a bound- 
less, unyielding claim to all he is and all he can do. Ecce 
deus fortior me, qui ventens dominabitur miht. That this 
feeling has both a theistic implication and a theistic trend 
seems to me to be evident; and yet it is a mistake to teach 
that all men recognize in conscience the imperative ofa 
personal God. Some men feel only a solemn presence 
or power, something in them and yet above them, an 
unpliable overmaster. 

Another thing should be noted: This feeling that 
there is an overmaster with absolute claim upon us is 
not the feeling of dependence, but a feeling many reaches 
loftier. In the sense of dependence one feels need, but in 
the moral mood one feels authority. It is not that I re- 
quire something, but that my overmaster requires some- 
thing. Homer says: ‘‘As young birds ope the mouth for 
food, so all men need the gods;”’ and the sentence would 
make a suitable text for a large part of the moral and 


72 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


religious discussion since Schleiermacher. But the con- 
ception is superficial and leads to sentimental weakness 
in the religious life. Surely we doneed God and the gifts 
of God. Surely we have this sense of need and should 
give it large place later. But (and I must urge this upon 
you!) the fundamental moral feeling is that of authority, 
and the supreme moral action is that of obedience. 

If now we can succeed in keeping this taproot of moral 
concern free from Christian and theistic interlacing, we 
can, I think, perceive that the primary moral feeling is 
essentially a feeling of fear. Under recognized super- 
natural authority the truly moral man fears to do wrong. 
But we must be extremely discriminating here, or we 
shall plunge into a crass utilitarianism. This moral 
fear is not like the animal fear of pain. (Remember our 
discussion of Conscience.) It is not, primarily, an as- 
sociational fear of results. It is an intuitive fear of the 
supernatural authority. The man has no reason for it. 
He is made to fear conscience, that is all. The fear is 
just as immediate, just as constitutional, as the sense of 
moral distinction itself. Inasmuch, then, as the simple, 
unenriched moral bearing is one of fear, the man of bare 
morality is a slave; a slave not in the sense that his voli- 
tions are necessitated, but in the sense that his motivity 
is charged with fear. “The crack of the moral whip 
never ceases.” Personal morality never can be any- 
thing better than the most noble slavery. 

Now we are prepared to come back to the question of 
the accretion of motive. I said that under the moral 
law no man can become an organic moral person; and I 
now add the reason. The impossibility lies in the fact 
that the main motive of personal morality—fear—s not 
an organizing motive. Indeed, fear is a motive of disin- 
tegration. Make any creature afraid, and the result isa 
scattering of all its forces like an army in flight. The 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 73 


profoundly moral man, then, who is merely moral and 
nothing more, is in this anomalous condition, namely, 
the best thing in him, his motive enthroned, is all the 
time rendering it less and less possible to bring all the 
elements of his manhood into moral unity. Were there 
nothing beyond morality—and I say it deliberately—it 
would be much better to have no moral life at all, yes, 
much better to have no personal life at all. An eagle, 
or a tree, is a success, for there is organic life in small 
range; but a moral man is a failure; never deeply at peace 
with himself; constantly afraid of an abstruse, sublime 
something with which he dare not fellowship; a shivering 
slave without a dream of freedom; an inorganic man 
never once bearing toward the universe in personal 
triumph. Moral loyalty is of large value; but the value 
is not that of a finality, it is that of an increment in a 
spiritual process. Praise the moralist as we will, glorify 
his heroism as we should, still we are to say unto him, 
“Go on! the end is not yet!” 

Only one motive is there which is capable of organizing 
a man, and that one motive is holy love. We must have 
love. It is not enough to have “morality touched by 
emotion.” Many a moral man can take fire at bare 
thought of the supremacy of righteousness. It is not any 
emotion, it is not any great emotion which we need, but 
the one peculiar kind of emotion, the creative passion of 
love. This—love in the heart—is the organizer para- 
mount. It will dominate every mood, make all idio- 
syncrasies coalesce, bring every wandering element of 
manhood into organic simplicity and beauty. It is not 
merely love’s power of fusion, the fire, the intensity of the 
passion by which other emotions are transformed into 
blended urgencies, all driving toward the same object; 
neither is it the fullness of love, its oceanic occupancy of 
self-consciousness; it is these, fusion and fullness, with 


74 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


the addition of psychic endurance, the staying-power of 
love in consciousness—it is these three qualities which 
make love the organizer it is. But, further, it is not any 
sort of love which can organize a man. He must have 
holy love. Man is a moral person, and he can be fully 
organized only under moral terms. The love must be 
just as ethical as that great fear which the moral loyalist 
has. You must not throw that fear away. You must 
take that very fear and make it over into a holy love, a 
boundless passion for all moral concern, a passion so 
ethical that it would be an awful fear were it for an instant 
to stop throbbing with the joy of personal fellowship. 
But how, pray, can this be done? how can moral fear be 
made over into moral love? In some way the moral law 
itself must be transformed into a personal Friend. 

From Personal Morality to Religion. As a matter of 
fact men do not to-day very commonly pass into religion 
from personal morality. They are, as said before, too 
cowardly to try to meet fully and patiently the require- 
ments of their own ideal; and so they go back into 
sporadic morality, or into formal morality, or into a life 
immoral out and out. But whenever the loyalty is stead- 
fastly maintained the man is certain sooner or later to 
realize the impossibility of his expanding task, and with 
this realization to experience ethical despair. An in- 
stance we have in the life of Thomas Carlyle. It is, lam 
aware, quite the fashion to depreciate Carlyle as “a 
dramatic exploiter of abnormal emotions”; but with 
sanity and verity he wrote out his own experience. And 
his own experience was typical—was the experience 
common to every soul morally in earnest. 

The First Glimmer of Repentance. With serious pur- 
pose I have termed this despair of the hopeless moral 
loyalist an ethical despair. It is ethical because the 
ethical ideal is exalted by the very despair itself. The 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 75 


hopeless man cares more and more for his ideal, cares 
more and more for righteousness, in every moment of 
his distress. And so his consciousness is flooded with 
ethical quality. It is, I believe, this brave moral in- 
sistence, this unflinching purpose rather to perish than 
to cheapen one’s life, which opens up the way for super- 
natural help. Anyway, a wonderful change takes place. 
The fierce determination turns into a personal sorrow for 
failure, perhaps the most beautiful thing in the universe. 
Yes, and, strangely enough, a hopeful thing, too; for the 
despair begins to break up like a clearing storm. This is 
not by any means so profound as is Christian repentance, 
but it is morally the same kind of an experience. I call 
it the first glimmer of repentance—and the dawn of 
religion. 


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Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest 
and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the 
belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in 
harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.—Wuliam James, Gifford 
Lectures, p. 53- 


The origin of religion consists in the fact that man Aas the Infinite 
within him, even before he is himself conscious of it. . . . Whatever 
name we give it—instinct, or an innate, original, and unconscious form 
of thought, or form of conception—it is the specifically human element 
in man, the idea which dominates him. He gives it precedence over 
the finite. . . . Even primitive man, as soon as he comes to appre- 
hend the finite, regards it as perplexing and unnatural.—C. P. Tiele, 
Elements of the Science of Religion, ed. 1899, Criticism of Max 
Miiller, ii, 228-233. 


There is necessarily present in us, in virtue of the very fact that our 
inner and our outer lives stand in constant relation to each other, 
the consciousness of a Being or Principle which is above both and 
revealed in both. ...A human consciousness cannot exist without 
some dawning of reverence—of an awe and aspiration which is as 
different from fear as it is from presumption, from slavish submission 
as it is from tyrannical self-assertion. And it is this reverence, this 
sense of a subjection which elevates us, of an obedience that makes 
us free, this consciousness of a Power which curbs and humiliates us, 
but at the same time draws us up to itself, which is the essence of 
religion and the source of man’s higher life-—Edward Caird, The 
Evolution of Religion, ed. 1899, i, 79, 80. 


I have never seen a satisfactory definition of religion. The idea is 


too complex for a brief logical statement. . . . The past year or two 
I have given my class two or three statements, partly introductory, 
partly in the nature of a summation. . . . In different text connec- 


tions they are as follows: In its highest sense, religion is the normal 
personal bearing of men in and toward God, the ground of all finite ex- 
istence. In a wider sense, tt includes all actual or historic endeavors 
after such a bearing, however far short of the ideal they may come. ... A 
personal bearing over against the divine, true in its intellectual presup- 
position, genuine rn tts ethical presupposition, complete and symmetrical 
in its forms of expression, is entitled to the name of absolutely normal 
religion. In the perject love of the perfect God is found the flower and 
perfection of such religion. It presupposes a true knowledge, a right 
impulse, and issues in a well-balanced expression toward God and man. 
Should you desire to quote any or all of these statements, I should 
prefer that you would not call them my definition, as that would 
imply that I believe it possible to frame a satisfactory, logical defini- 
tion of the term.—W. F. Warren, froma letter dated Boston, January 
26, 1903. 


VI. RELIGION 


THE conclusions in our discussion of religion have been 
reached under a general method which may be indicated 
in a few words. Three questions I have asked, in 
the following order: 1. What are the intrinsically sig- 
nificant things in man’s life, individual, personal, and 
moral? 2. Taking it for granted that the Christian 
faith is the highest manifestation of religion, how can 
we philosophically relate that faith to the full life of man? 
And, 3. Having thus secured a Christian-anthropological 
standpoint, how can we explain all known religious data 
from that standpoint? No claim is made that this 
method is suitable for a science of religion; but surely 
it is the only method feasible for an introduction to 
systematic theology. 

The Supernatural. Before we try to analyze religion, 
though, we need to come somewhat closer to this tempest- 
tossed term, supernatural. What is the supernatural as 
man understands it? I answer: The infinite mystery 
beyond the organism of nature. This answer, however, 
but leads to another question, What is nature as man 
understands that? John Stuart Mill says: ‘‘ Nature means 
the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which 
produce them; including not only all that happens, but 
all that is capable of happening; the unused capabilities 
of causes being as much a part of the idea of nature as 
those which take effect.” This definition does not at all 
express the conception of the average man. Men do not 
regard nature as including all that happens and all that is 
capable of happening. The conception is much more lim- 
ited. Nature includes only what happens within the range 


80 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


of common individual seizure. Men call a thing natural 
when it appeals only to their individual apprehension, or 
when it appeals to any part of the man that falls short of 
moral personality. Thus it is that the range of nature is not 
the same to all men. The men are different and so the 
appeal is different. And thus it is that as men change, 
the contents of their natural world may change also. A 
man may say, ‘“‘ Why, that is natural, but it did not seem 
so before.’ In other words, the idea of nature is a rela- 
tive and not an absolute truth. For their development, 
men need to be dualistic; they need two worlds; although, 
as a matter of ultimate fact, the two worlds make one 
organism and not two. And yet, as we shall see later, 
men are not deceived. A relative truth is not an un- 
truth; it is truth in circumscription. A man on the deck 
of a steamship sees the ocean in circumscription, but he 
does see the ocean and not a mirage. ‘Reality strikes 
him full in the face.”” If we bear in mind this relative 
significance, this educational value of the idea of nature, 
we can see that it is not important that there should be 
precise agreement as to what things are natural. But it 
is important that every man, in all his development, 
should keep the idea of nature as a background over 
against which he can sanely and distinctly realize his 
higher world—the supernatural. 

In analyzing the idea of the supernatural as conceived 
by the ordinary man, we find in it several elements: 
1. The supernatural is beyond nature. The thought here 
is not that it is further away, but rather that it is less 
seizable, less subject to common apprehension, more 
transcendent. 2. Involved in this transcendence is the 
full notion of mystery. And this notion of mystery is 
very peculiar. It is not at all the notion of a puzzle, 
that now baffles us, but some day may be guessed out, 
or worked out. No man ever expects to solve the mystery 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 81 


of the supernatural. He may apprehend it a little better, 
but never can he master its depths, never can he com- 
prehend it. In fact, this sense of mystery is probably 
nothing other than a special mood of man’s inherent 
sense of finitude. He feels that he is “a speck in the 
center of the Immensities.’”’ 3. Involved in this sense of 
mystery, or at least starting in it, is the notion of the in- 
fimte. Out beyond nature there is not only a mystery, 
but a boundless mystery. The supernatural is without 
limits. In other words, the common man has the prac- 
tical beginning of that tremendous conception which the 
philosopher protects and partly expresses by the term 
absolute. To some men, this infinite is an infinite person. 
To a few men, it is aninfinite law or order. And it would 
seem as if instances had been found where the conception 
is so vague that it should be called merely the notion of a 
presence. But to the majority, in all the history of man- 
kind, the infinite has been an infinite power. The in- 
finite mystery out beyond nature has, in the end, its own 
way, can do all things—is almighty. To cover fairly, 
though, the entire range of human experience, we may say 
that to man the supernatural is the infinite mystery beyond 
the total system of nature; and nature includes all those 
things which can be seized or apprehended by the indi- 
vidual without the help of moral personality. Some 
question there may be as to my right to use, in this con- 
nection, the term system, or the term organism. But 
I have such a right; for the common idea of nature is that 
of a realm, or kingdom, and never that of unrelated 
confusion. The average man has no philosophical con- 
ception of an organism, but he has a practical view which, 
if fully analyzed, clearly amounts to the same thing. 
Indeed, every fundamental notion of the common man 
has a truly philosophical root. All men are philosophers, 
whether they recognize the fact or not. ~ 


82 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


The Origin of Man’s Sense of the Supernaturai. There 
now arises the question which I deem the most crucial in 
the discussion of religion, namely, How does this sense of 
the supernatural originate in man? or what enables man 
to fling out beyond nature a supernatural world? The 
answer lies truly in our view of what the supernatural 
means to man; but let us draw out the infoldment. 
And it may be helpful to note with more emphasis the 
peculiar conception we have of man, a conception under- 
lying many of our discussions and cropping out again and 
again. A man is an tndividual creature lifted out of 
animal automatism only in those moods which are personal 
or moral. A man is first of all an individual and has the 
automatic experience of an individual. There are mo- 
ments, hours, even days, when his life rises no higher than 
that of a most wonderful animal. Again, a man is a 
person, able to treat his individuality self-consciously, 
with uncoerced volition. Now he is above the automa- 
ton, and yet there is no moral quality necessarily in his 
experience. Not every instant of self-consciousness must 
be an instant of moral distinction and demand. There 
may be in certain degenerate men, or in certain abnormal 
situations, or in certain fragmentary moods, a quasi per- 
sonal experience which is no higher. And again, a man 
may live the full life of a moral person, not only conscious 
of self, but also conscious of self under moral requirement. 

These distinctions in mind, then, we affirm that man’s 
sense of the supernatural originates only in the experience 
of the moral person. As an individual animal alone, he 
would have no more sense of the supernatural than there 
is ina zebra. Neither am I willing to grant the claim of 
Edward Caird, that “there is necessarily present in us, in 
virtue of the very fact that our inner and our outer lives 
stand in constant relation to each other, the consciousness 
of a Being, or Principle, which is above both and revealed 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 83 


in both.” If I catch his meaning, it is that in the bare 
experience of personality itself we bind the subject and 
the object, the inner and the outer world, together by 
means of our sense of an overarching infinite. But I do 
not so understand man’s personal experience. In the 
experience of bare personality, the person is entirely oc- 
cupied with himself. Nor do I think that a man is able 
to spring this arch of the infinite even when he compares 
his personal experience with his individual experience. 
The more I study men, the more thoroughly I am con- 
vinced that the human sense of the supernatural is 
created by a movement in the moral life; and had man 
no conscience, he never would have such a sense at all. 
My own view may be stated in this manner: In man’s con- 
ception of the supernatural world there are really two 
things: First, there is an intuitive moral center. This lies 
in conscience. When, in conscience, a man first feels the 
ultimate authority of the moral overmaster he gets his 
first idea of the supernatural. To the man the over- 
master is beyond nature, is a transcendent mystery, is 
infinite—is the supernatural. Second, there is an arbitrary 
augment. Because a man is a person he can treat this 
moral center with originality. Never could he obtain 
the idea of the supernatural in any mood less than the 
ethical; but he can keep it when once he has it, and he can 
apply it, in any mood whatsoever. In this manner he 
comes to regard all sorts of things, even non-moral things, 
if mysterious, as supernatural, and projects a great realm 
beyond the laws of nature. 

_ Before we take our next step, I wish to call your atten- 
tion especially to the extreme valuation which I have 
placed upon man’s sense of the supernatural by centering 
it in the moral life. Auguste Comte, and many who do 
not accept positivism as a philosophy, look upon this 
sense of the supernatural as a crudity temporary in human 


84 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


development; but I look upon it as the loftiest and most 
abiding feature of man’s spiritual constitution. Imper- 
fect and abnormal expressions of this sense will pass away, 
precisely as imperfect and morbid expressions of moral 
distinction itself will pass away. All crass superstition 
will disappear. Dante will not forever plan to use ‘‘the 
mystic number nine.” Samuel Johnson will not forever 
be anxious “‘to go out or in at a door or passage by a cer- 
tain number of steps from a certain point.” But man’s 
sense of the infinite mystery will not pass away as long as 
he has a moral nature at all. He will, as he develops, 
exchange mysteries, that is all. In truth, man’s appre- 
ciation of the wonder of the supernatural is to be counted 
as his supreme dignity; it is this which, as a being made 
in the divine image, he “brings trailing from afar”; and 
it is this which, when all its implications are worked out, 
renders possible his full and final fellowship with God. 


TuE Reticious Process In MAN 
Superstition. When in any stage of life, or in any 
passing mood of his inner experience, a man separates 
the moral center of his supernatural world from the out- 
lying augment of mystery his bearing is one of super- 
stition. He feels sheer mystery and is afraid of it. In 
the folklore of Brittany we are told that when a fisherman 
is drowned the gulls fly crying and beat their wings against 
the casements of his house. Here we have an instance 
of mere superstition. If we study this and like instances 
we discover three things: a sense of mystery, a fear of 
mystery, and a lack of all moral quality. This lack, 
however, is entirely unlike the deficiency in an animal, for 
at any moment it may change and express moral concern. 
Again and again has a man’s feeling begun in superstitious 

dread and ended in the torture of conscience. 
Morality—Is It Religion? Often it is said that J. H. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 85 


Fichte taught that morality and religion are one and the 
same thing; but I do not so understand Fichte. In his 
Ethik he says: “Religion is conscious morality, a mo- 
tality which in virtue of that consciousness is mindful of 
its origin in God.”” Probably Fichte means as much here 
as Kant meant in defining religion as “the recognition 
[Erkenninis] of all our duties as divine commandments.” 
If he did mean as much as Kant meant, then his concep- 
tion of religion is beyond anything possible within the 
scheme of mere morals. But, in any case, I must regard 
morality as a much lower experience than that of religion. 
Both superstition and morality are, I grant, in the re- 
ligious process, but neither of them reaches a point in the 
process beyond fear. And surely it is not economy to 
squander the noble term religion upon any sort of slavery. 

Bare Religion. The principle of economy, though, is 
not my only reason, nor, indeed, my main reason, for 
lifting religion into a range beyond morality. The main 
reason pertains to my chosen method of studying the 
subject. Under this method chosen I study Christianity 
itself, to discover the fundamental religious characteristic, 
and find that characteristic to be not fear, but faith. I 
therefore hold that the first thing in the religious process 
worthy to be termed religion is a personal bearing of 
faith toward the supernatural. Man naturally fears the 
supernatural wherever he finds it, but because he is a free 
person he can do a greater thing than to create the arbi- 
trary augment, he can master his fear by a venture of trust. 
This personal venture we call faith. With such faith 
a man no longer dreads the supernatural, he reverences 
it. And so fear is turned into awe, and the act of true 
worship becomes possible. If now we note, in the reli- 
gious process, the lowest situation where there can be this 
venture of faith, we shall find the lowest kind of religion. 
At once we perceive that this lowest situation is at the 


86 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


point of the augment. Separate the augment from the 
moral center, and there is the supernatural as sheer mys- 
tery. Toward this supernatural as sheer mystery there is 
possible to man not only the bearing of fear, or super- 
stition, but also the venture of faith. This is religion, 
but inasmuch as it is without moral quality, I term it 
bare religion. 

Of this bare religion there are many instances, not only 
in heathen lands, but even in Christendom. Be sure to 
understand me fully here. I mean that there are men 
who maintain a brave bearing of confidence toward the 
awful mystery surrounding them, and yet their confidence 
has resulted from a purely personal venture, and not 
from a profoundly moral struggle. The self-decisions of 
such men never burn with serious moral intention; and 
their whole bearing toward the supernatural is, justly 
speaking, nonmoral. Having in mind Emerson’s fa- 
mous address before the divinity school at Cambridge, 
Professor William James said: ‘‘Now it would be too 
absurd to say that the inner experiences that underlie 
such expressions of faith, and impel the writer to their 
utterance, are quite unworthy to be called religious ex- 
periences.” Surely that would be too absurd! Readily 
I grant that Emerson’s experience was religious, but 
what I fail to discover in his experience is a Christian 
element, or even any vitalizing ethical element. He had 
large courage, large trust, and achieved a kind of content, 
precisely the kind Littré achieved; but to call Emerson’s 
placidity moral peace would be to leave no worthy 
term for religious experiences more noble and more pro- 
found. Take Emerson’s Threnody (almost the greatest 
lament in the English language), which reaches its climax 
of personal faith in these sublime words: 


“Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye 
Up to his style, and manners of the sky.” 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 87 


Study this poem from the beginning to the climax, and 
you will find in it not one touch of Christian faith, and not 
one touch of that moral atmosphere so evident in, say, 
Sartor Resartus. The Threnody is religious, yes, ex- 
tremely religious, but it expresses only the personal daring, 
the venture into confidence of bare religion. And, ‘in 
this connection, I need to say one more thing: A re- 
ligious faith which is not steeped in moral passion is an 
exceedingly fragmentary and an exceedingly dangerous 
thing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that 
such faith has done more injury to men than any style of 
mental aberration. Inherently, in the deep nature of 
health, in the working out the full plan of human life, no 
man has a right to any content which was not born in 
moral concern. To be easily religious, to be religious 
without earnest moral intention, is as much out of plan 
as it would be for an eagle to fly with only one wing. If 
the eagle can do it at all he may reach a higher crag; but 
he was not made to fly with only one wing, and in such a 
crippled state he never can fly high enough and long 
enough to find his true home among the mountains. 
Religion is intended to help a man to reach the lojtzest 
moral lI:fe. 

The Religion of the Moral Person. Already, in our 
study of morality, we have glimpsed the fact, but our 
conclusions there we now need to place in larger relations. 
What does a person do to get an experience which is both 
moral and religious?—that is our question. He first 
treats the supernatural, his entire vision of it, from the 
standpoint of right and wrong. To him, that infinite 
mystery, whatever else it may be, is ethical. It ‘“‘makes 
for righteousness.” Then, the moral person treats him- 
self from the same standpoint, right and wrong. And 
this leads to self-blame and ethical sorrow over himself. 
The man’s mood here is not defensive—is not discrimi- 


88 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


nating—he does not know and does not try to find out to 
what precise degree he is at fault. He makes no excuse 
before men and no plea in the inner court. He simply 
feels that he has failed and that he himself is to blame 
and that he is profoundly sorry. This ethical sorrow is 
the first glimmer of repentance. Let us call it nztial 
repentance. Such repentance makes a complete cleavage 
between bare religion and the religion of the moral person, 
just as it makes a complete cleavage between the most 
noble morality and the religion of the moral person. We 
are wont to associate repentance with the Christian faith 
alone; but before a man can have moral faith of any kind 
he must repent. Again, in the third place, the person 
ventures out into a moral faith toward the supernatural. 
For two reasons the faith is moral, namely, because it is 
made with full emphasis upon the center of the super- 
natural, and because it is made in the spirit of repentance. 
I doubt not that there is in this faith, just as there is in 
the faith of bare religion, a large appreciation of person- 
ality. Indeed, I do not see how any faith can be possible 
without an intense appreciation of personality. For to 
have faith one must perceive the intrinsic worth of a 
personal bearing over against any amount of external 
performance. But, and this is the heart of the matter, 
the loyal moral person is all the time, even in his faith, 
testing himself under an ethical standard, and so his 
valuation of himself never misses an ethical tone. It is 
not what he means that is important, but what he means 
under his moral ideal. Therefore, when Professor Seth 
affirms that a religious approach is possible “only in a 
person, in a relatively independent or self-centered being,” 
I quickly allow it; but must add, that such an approach, 
to have large significance in the religious process, must be 
made with moral faith. The route to a worthy religious 
experience is only by way of the moral law, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 89 


We can now clearly see that in the religion of the 
moral person faith can never be antinomian. Certainly 
he does make substitution for conduct. He does substi- 
tute spirit for letter, a personal attitude for external deed. 
To his own soul he dares to say, “What I want to do, 
what I love, is of more worth than what I can accomplish 
now, here, under my ideal of duty.’’ Note this, though, 
he makes this substitution in his passion of concern for 
the moral law; and so, as a matter of daily fact, his new 
moral faith keeps him striving as never before, to get his 
inner purpose out into faultless conduct. The merely 
moral man cannot live, even before men, a life so stringent 
in noble service as is rendered possible to a person by 
moral faith. 

The Enrichment. Even this religion of the moral 
person, this religion of moral faith, is not, however, “a 
finished product.” It is capable of vast enrichment by 
means of love. Psychologically considered, this love ex- 
ists when personal faith turns into awe. There can be, 
indeed, no faith without a lift of the heart, and no awe 
without a certain eagerness toward the object of it. But 
practically considered, this affectional movement in faith 
and awe do not amount to love. Nor is the affection 
involved in moral faith worthy to be, in and of itself, 
termed love. The word love should be economically, 
sacredly kept for that definite feeling which the religious 
man may have toward God as a Person in reciprocal 
response. The possibility of love involves the possibility 
of full reciprocity. You cannot love a mere thing. 

- The Consummation. But love itself is not the final 
word in a complete discussion of the religious process. 
Love is certainly the ultimate religious motive, but motive 
is only one, the central, element in the ultimate religious 
experience. Thus far we have intentionally placed the 
most tremendous emphasis upon personality, and more 


90 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


especially upon moral personality. The individual we 
have cast out into insignificance. Now we must bring 
him back! Religion is intended to satisfy not merely 
the moral person, but the individual as well. It must, 
to realize its plan, gather up into perfect satisfaction the 
total man with all his longings, even those which are the 
most subtle and vague. The individual man, deeper 
than any self-consciousness, has an instinctive craving for 
God. As the person feels authority, so the individual 
feels need. If you have ever watched a half-frozen ani- 
mal, wandering about, not knowing what he was after, 
but restless until he found the fire, you have at hand an 
analogy for an individual’s automatic craving after God. 
The moral person wants God, but he wants to have an 
active relation to him, he wants to know him, to obey 
him, to serve him. But the individual wants to have a 
passive relation to God, to be nothing in him, to rest in 
him forever. This individual side of religion is seen not 
only in every form of pantheism, but also in every form 
of mysticism. And the Bible itself, in some of the Psalms, 
in Saint John’s gospel, and in Saint Paul’s epistles, has 
many a trace of mysticism. Outside of the Bible, we 
could find the mystical temper not only in the writings 
of those men known as “‘the mystics,” but also in the 
writings of some of the most famous teachers of the 
Christian faith. Furthermore, even in this age of exter- 
nality and sensible performance, some of the finest poetry 
is either charged with mysticism or at least alive to the 
large significance of the mystical spirit in the deepest 
religious life. One striking passage I will give, from 
Johannes Agricola in Meditation: 


“For I intend to get to God, 
For ’tis to God I speed so fast, 
For in God’s breast, my own abode, 
Those shoals of dazzling glory passed, 
I lay my spirit down at last,’ 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 91 


In the consummation of religion the two sides, the 
personal and the individual, the assertive and the quies- 
cent, must equally find place, and must be entirely har- 
monious in their coincidence. How, though, can there 
be a joining and blending of such antipodal features? 
The question can, I believe, be fully answered. After the 
individual life is thoroughly personalized the probational 
struggle is over, and the person’s condition of motivity 
has become such that he can and does yield his whole 
being to God. This final and absolute yielding is the 
culmination of a long series of personal decisions, and is 
itself a self-conscious act, a veritable self-commitment. 
The response to this final and absolute self-commitment is 
an inrushing, an enswathement of the man by the divine 
life, so that every fiber of his being is penetrated and vital- 
ized. For the first time in his existence the entire man 
lives. He is in organic adjustment to the Infinite. He 
thinks God’s thoughts, he feels God’s emotions, he wills 
God’s volitions—in finite measure, he lives God’s life. 
And yet the man as a person is not overwhelmed. He 
grasps himself, knows himself in every peculiarity, and 
fills out ceaselessly every inherent indication of the plan 
of his own being. In all the eternities he will never cease 
to be his own personal self, will never come to be pre- 
cisely like any other creature in the universe. In in- 
dividuality the man is conjoined with God; in personality 
he is separate in self-consciousness, and yet also conscious 
of his union with God. Asa mote floats in the sunbeam, 
so this bit of manhood quietly rests in God; but he rests 
there as a person who has deliberately chosen his ever- 
lasting home. True it is that he will remain, that ‘‘he 
shall go no more out”’; yes, true it is that he must remain; 
but he must remain, not because he is established by 
coercion, but because he himself has freely exhausted 
every motive to go, and nourished every motive to stay, 


92 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


And even his present establishment in rest is personal 
and not automatic, for ceaselessly it throbs with the 
supreme joy of self-consciously choosing to live forever 
in God. In this manner, the two antipodal features of 
man’s nature find at last their harmonious coincidence. 
Absolute personal unification with the Infinite God— 
this is the consummation of religion. 


ANALYTICAL SUMMARY 


I, THE SUPERNATURAL 


1. The fundamental thing which renders religion possible to man 
as a person is his intuitive sense of the infinite mystery beyond nature, 
or his intuitive sense of the supernatural. 

2. This intuitive sense of the supernatural is moral in its origin. 
When a man first glimpses moral concern in its otherness, its suprem- 
acy, and its boundlessness, that is to him the supernatural. 

3. Then the man himself arbitrarily enlarges his supernatural 
world until it includes many things having no moral quality and no 
moral relation. 

4. Thus there are in the average man’s conception of the supernatural 
two things which should never be confused: (1) The moral center, 
where the mystery is a voice in moral demand. (2) The arbitrary 
augment, where the mystery is nothing but mystery—a vague other 
world without moral distinction and urgency. 


II. Beartncs TOWARD THE SUPERNATURAL 


1. Whenever a man is in a nonmoral mood his bearing is one of 
spontaneous fear toward the arbitrary augmentof sheermystery. As 
this fear has in it no moral quality, never yields any pressure toward 
duty, we place the bearing low in classification and call it superstition. 

2. Whenever, on the other hand, the man is in a moral mood, his 
bearing is one of spontaneous fear toward the moral center, or toward 
the total mystery with his emphasis upon the moral center. His fear 
now is vibrant with moral quality, yields constant pressure toward 
duty, and so we place the bearing higher in classification and call it 
morality. 

3. But it is possible for a man to overcome fear by venture, to 
bear toward the supernatural in personal faith. This venture of faith, 
this ‘‘personal leap into confidence,” is so intrinsically unlike fear, 
so much loftier than fear, so much more fruitful than fear, that we 
place the bearing still higher in classification and call it religion. 
Not only so, but to term it religion also fits into our analysis of Chris- 
tianity itself. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 93 


III. RELIGION 
Definition. 
Religion is a personal bearing of faith toward the supernatural. 
Analysts. 

1. Religion is a personal bearing. Religion is possible only toa 
person, for it involves self-conscious decision. 

2. A personal bearing of faith. The personal bearing must be 
one of trust. i 

3. A personal bearing of faith toward the supernatural. It is 
man’s sense of the supernatural which renders religion possible to 
him as a person. Sometimes a high mood of esthetic sensitive- 
ness is regarded as religious, but it is not religious unless the man 
deem beauty itself supernatural. 

Kinds of Religion. 

1. The religion of mere faith, or bare religion. This is but a 
personal venture of confidence toward the supernatural con- 
ceived as sheer mystery. 

2. The religion of moral faith, or the religion of the moral per- 
son. ‘This is a personal venture of confidence toward the super- 
natural conceived as centering in moral concern. The moral 
faith is consequent upon repentance. 

3. The religion of love. This is the religion of moral faith 
enriched by love toward the supernatural now conceived as a 
responsive person. 

4. The ultimate religion. This is the religion of love consum- 
mated by absolute personal unification with God. 


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I hola, then, it is true, that all the so-called demonstrations of God 
either prove too little, as that from the order and apparent purpose 
in nature; or too much, namely, that the world is itself God; or they 
clandestinely involve the conclusions in the premises, passing off the 
mere analysis or explication of an assertion for the proof of it—a 
species of logical legerdemain not unlike that of the jugglers at a fair, 
who, putting into their mouths what seems to be a walnut, draw out 
a score yards of ribbon—as in the postulate of a First Cause. . . . All 
this I hold. But I also hold that this truth, the hardest to demon- 
strate, is the one which of all others least needs to be demonstrated; 
that though there may be no conclusive demonstrations of a good, 
wise, living, and personal God, there are so many convincing reasons 
for it, within and without, a grain of sand sufficing, and a whole uni- 
verse at hand to echo the decision!—that, for every mind not devoid 
of all reason and desperately conscience-proof, the truth which it is 
the least possible to prove it is little less than impossible not to believe; 
only, indeed, just so much short of impossible as to leave some room 
for the Will and the moral election, and thereby to keep it a truth 
of religion, and the possible subject of a commandment.—From 
Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection, Works, i, 220, 221. 


I am aware, of course, that among a large number of advanced 
minds at the present time nothing is considered more absurd and 
out of date than what is called anthropomorphism, or the endow- 
ing of the Great Cause of things with human attributes. To believe 
that the Deity is constructed after the model of our own mind is con- 
sidered as ridiculous as to believe that the earth is the center of the 
universe, and human beings the objects for whose special delectation 
the whole galaxy of suns and planets and stars have been created. 
Nevertheless, in spite of the agreement and weight of opinion on this 
point, I shall venture to affirm, on the contrary, that to believe that 
the cause of the universe can be conceived of in terms other than those 
of our own personality (or a part of our personality) is as hopeless an. 
hallucination as to believe that by any effort whatsoever one can 
jump off one’s own shadow. . . . I will undertake to show in any 
system of philosophy whatever that has a coherent scheme where 
the author’s conception of the cause of things is drawn from theories 
or experiences of the human mind.— John Beattie Crozter, Civilization 
and Progress, pp. 192-194. 


Now, to the plain man it will always seem that if our very notion 
of causality is derived from our own volition—as our very notion of 
energy is derived from our sense of effort in overcoming resistance by 
our volition—presumably the truest notion we can form of that in 
which causation objectively consists is the notion derived from that 
known mode of existence which alone gives us the notion of causality 
at all—George John Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, pp. rr7, 118. 


VII. THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT 


THE word demonstration, when exactly used, means 
an argument of such cogency as to compel anyone who 
understands the process to accept the conclusion. In 
this exact sense the theistic argument is not a demon- 
stration. A man of sanity, intelligence, and entire hon- 
esty can follow the process step by step and yet not be 
convinced that there is a personal God. In truth, there 
are to-day many such men, men who are not carried by 
any or all the proofs of theism, genuine agnostics who 
say with Mr. Darwin, “I am conscious that I am in an 
utterly hopeless muddle.” And yet the theistic argu- 
ment has real value as an explanation of the universe. 
When we become more modest and look upon the universe 
as a problem to be explained, then the theistic argument 
grants us the most rational explanation of that problem 
from the standpoint of our personal experience. In the 
first place, because man is a free person, he dares to as- 
sume that his problem can be explained—that the uni- 
verse is “not a farrago of nonsense,”’ but is amenable to 
tational search. Then, he further dares to take for 
granted the reliability of his own personal experience and 
to explain his problem in the terms of that experience. 
What these terms are we will now try to discover. 

Causation. Hume, it seems to me, never understood 
the principle of causation. It is not, as he held, an out- 
come of habit, a thing founded on the observation of an 
invariable sequence of events. Time and time again 
there is such sequence (as when day follows night), and 
yet we do not regard the events as cause and effect. 
The two ideas, indeed, that of sequence and that of cau- 


98 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


sation, are altogether different. One is a surface relation, 
and the other is an efficient connection. A mere prece- 
dence may be inactive and even impotent, but a cause 
must have inherent efficiency and must bring something 
to pass. The pith of the idea is the idea of power. A 
cause is power at work. But where does this idea of 
power come from? How do we ever get the notion at 
all? We get it from the experience of self-assertion, and 
self-assertion in check. We ourselves make an effort to 
do something, and it is done. Then we try again, and, 
meeting an obstacle too great for our strength, our self- 
assertion isincheck. It is this double experience of doing 
things and failing to do things which gives us the idea of 
power and the idea of power at work. . Thus, by means of 
personal experience men obtain the notion of cause and 
effect. Causation is the first term of personal experience 
by which men explain the problem of the universe. The 
universe is to them an effect produced by power at work. 
And in the very nature of the case they regard this power 
at work as will-power, for all the power they profoundly 
know is will-power. 

Personal Intention. One of the most peculiarly inter- 
esting speculations in theistic discussion is John Stuart 
Mill’s ‘‘argument for a first cause.” In the cosmos he 
finds, he says, not merely a feature of change as events 
come to pass, but also two abiding features, namely, force 
and matter. In the feature of change, the events are caused 
by the abiding, impersonal force acting upon the eternal 
matter in fruitful junctures of collocation. This “collo- 
cation’ reminds us instantly of ‘“‘the arrangement and 
position” (rdfig wai Oéo¢) of Democritus; and, given 
in brave English, it means that the universe originated 
in haphazard. Concerning such fortuitous origin Lord 
Kelvin has said: ‘Is there anything so absurd as to 
believe that a number of atoms by falling together of 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 90 


their own accord could make a crystal, a sprig of moss, a 
microbe, or a living animal?’’ And the same absurdity 
we must associate with Mill’s most ingenious statement 
of fortuity. But why is it so absurd? Why might not 
a great, abiding, impersonal power, with a certain amount 
of good luck in collocation, do everything? such a power 
would be a cause, for the eternal force is at work behind 
the events which take place. And perhaps Mill would 
allow us the idea of will-power if we were able to chasten 
it of true personal content. Let us, then, generously 
state the question thus: Why may we not believe that 
the universe is an effect produced by an impersonal will- 
power acting in fortunate chance-combinations? I an- 
swer: Because such a conception is in violation of man’s 
second term of personal experience, the experience of 
personal intention. We ourselves not only do things, but 
we also do things which we intend to do—things which un- 
equivocally express our personal intention. These things 
have often unmistakable marks of design. Not bare 
intelligence, but intelligence in such complicated com- 
binations of effect as surely to manifest self-conscious 
purpose. Who, for instance, could examine a telescope, 
and not be altogether certain that it was made by per- 
sonal intention? Such a combination can be interpreted 
in no other way without violating a fact of our own per- 
sonal experience. Precisely so in regard to our interpre- 
tation of the world about us. In nature we discover 
countless marks of purpose. Some say that these marks 
have been obliterated by modern scientific study; but 
this is not so. Science has not even obscured the marks. 
If it has, here and there, taken away an item, it has 
given us a more purposeful combination than we ever 
had. What does it matter if the theist lose the web-foot 
of a duck, if he find about the duck a vast and compli- 
cated movement which ceaselessly manifests personal 


100 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


intention? With a few unimportant modifications, the 
argument from design can be made to-day much more 
effective than it was in the time of Paley. I say, then, 
that in nature we discover plain marks of purpose. And 
these marks we treat in harmony with our own experience 
as persons. To the charge that this is a plain case of 
anthropomorphism, our reply is, that is just what it should 
be. It is only a doctrinaire who would expect men to 
explain the world from any standpoint other than that of 
their own fundamental experience. 

The Term of Unity. Following Kant, many writers on 
theism have pointed out the inherent weakness in the 
argument from design. With this argument, you can 
show that the great cause of things probably is personal, 
but you cannot make it evident that the personal cause 
is one person. In the marks of purpose, superficially 
examined, there is no trace of unity. To clearly bring 
out the point, let us go back to our telescope. To ex- 
plain the making of the telescope, we do need power at 
work with personal intention, but we do not need one 
person alone. There might be several, or many per- 
sons, connected with the making, and even with the 
designing, of the telescope, and still it would express per- 
sonal intention. Just so when we try to explain the 
cosmic problem, we do not require monotheism to ac- 
count for apparent design. Thus we reach the question, 
Why may we not posit a polytheism to explain the prob- 
lem of the universe? In our day the trend in science and 
philosophy is so monistic that our question is academic 
rather than practical. And yet it should be thoroughly 
answered. 

In Professor Everett’s valuable lectures, The Psycho- 
logical Elements of Religious Faith, he says: “What 
reason have we, then, for believing in a unity which can- 
not be proved by induction? The only answer is that 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH TOI 


we cannot help believing in it. We cannot think of 
causation without thinking of unity, we cannot make 
large generalization without going beyond them to uni- 
versal assumption. We receive a new thought, and we 
must at once bring it into relation with all our former 
experience. But no chain can support anything unless 
it is attached to something; an endless chain of reasoning 
is powerless, and we cannot help recognizing unity as that 
to which all reasoning ultimately attaches itself.”” This 
is well said, but it does not express more than a part of the 
truth, as I understand the matter. The first idea of unity 
we certainly do get from our own personal experience. 
Not only so, but because of our inner experience in self- 
consciousness we have what may be called a proclivity 
for unity, we want unity, we seek unity, we never rest 
until we find unity. Even were there no moral condition 
involved, no polytheism could ever seriously dominate 
the convictions of men. It is not natural for men to be 
satisfied with a crisscross of power and purpose at the 
heart of things. But it is not true that in the world 
itself there are no indications of unity. When we more 
closely scrutinize the marks of purpose; when we note 
how things enter into intricate combinations and exist in 
relations of harmony and reciprocity, we discover trace 
after trace of underlying unity. No one can watch a 
storm gather and burst, or a gull fly against the wind, or 
a child grow into manhood, and not perceive a fitness in 
things. And from this idea of fitness to the idea of unity 
in a cosmic plan is not a long journey. I would not say, 
though, that by induction alone we obtain or could obtain 
a belief in unity. The two things I have said must be 
joined. From our personal experience we have the idea 
of unity and the bias toward unity; and with these two 
alive and alert the marks of unity appeal to us convinc- 
ingly. Then we add these marks of unity to our data, 


102 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


and explain our problem by means of a unitary, persona] 
cause. 

The Transfer of the Infinite. There is one more ques- 
tion: When we have explained our cosmic problem by 
positing a unitary, personal power, why does the principle 
of causation not demand a cause behind this posited 
cause, and then cause behind cause, until we have an 
infinite series? To this question several answers have 
been given. One answer is that with our finite limita- 
tion we find an infinite series unendurable. As a tired 
land-bird in mid-ocean will light on the mast of a ship, 
so we in our mental weariness must have a resting place. 
Another answer is that in the experience of personality 
we ourselves make an original beginning in causation. 
We are, to that extent, out of causal connection; and 
so there is a sense in which every free person is a first 
cause. The longer I study the case the less am I 
satisfied with either answer. The true answer is pro- 
founder, I believe. We make at last a transcendent 
addition to our personal cause. There is an effort to 
satisfy the whole man, and so we utilize our sense of 
the supernatural. Already, as we have seen, there is 
in all our moral and religious life the conception of the 
supernatural as the infinite beyond nature. This infinite 
is to us a necessary stopping place, an almighty finality. 
No man can or needs to urge his thinking on beyond his 
sense of the infinite. I do not claim that to all men the 
infinite means as much as the absolute means to the phi- 
losopher; but it does mean as much as the first cause 
means to the theist. There is nothing beyond it, and it 
is self-sufficient. Having, then, this great conception in 
his own experience, it is natural for a person to use it in 
dealing with his cosmic problem; and so he transfers the 
infinite to the Creator of the universe, and now he has a 
cause that is potent, personal, unitary, and uncaused. 





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And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods 
And mountains; and all that we behold 
From this green earth. 
—Wuliam Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey, July 13, 1798. 


Men can as well subsist in a vacuum, or on a mere metallic earth, 
attended by no vegetable or animal products, as they can stay con- 
tent with mere cause and effect, and the endless cycle of nature. They 
may drive themselves into it, for the moment, by their speculations; 
but the desert is too dry, and the air too thin—they cannot stay. 
—RHorace Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, p. 66. 


Let us go still farther; nature is immoral, thoroughly immoral, I 
may say immoral to such a degree that everything moral is in a sense, 
and especially in its origin, in its first principle, only a reaction against 
the lessons or counsels that nature gives us. . . . There is no vice of 
which nature does not give us the example, nor any virtue from which 
she does not dissuade us. This is the empire of brute force and un- 
chained instincts—neither moderation nor shame, neither pity nor 
compassion, neither charity nor justice,—all species are armed against 
one another, in mutua funera; all passions aroused, every individual 
ready to oppose every other. This is the spectacle that nature offers 
us.—Ferdinand Brunetiére, Art and Morality. 


That this personal will is benevolent, and is shown to be so by the 
facts of the universe, which evince a providential care for men and 
other animals—this is just one of those plausibilities which passed 
muster before scientific method was understood; but modern science 
rejects it as unproved.—Str John Robert Seeley, Natural Religion, p. 1t. 


VIII. REVELATION 


The Cosmos and the Individual. To understand the 
attitude toward the natural world of a man like Words- 
worth, to appreciate his “fellowship with the fields,’ we 
only need to remember that he was the deputy of the indi- 
vidual as surely as Browning was the deputy of the person, 
the moral person. But is this attitude of Wordsworth 
legitimate and useful and wholesome? Certainly it is. At 
times man needs such a deputy, some one who can give 
utterance to all the cravings of his individuality. As an 
individual, a man is a part, and a very important part, of 
the natural universe. The cosmos becomes complete 
only in him. And so man is sensitive to even the most 
hidden currents in the cosmic life. Indeed, there is, 
I sometimes think, a secret cosmic force, not yet 
caught by science, perhaps never to be caught by 
science, which binds together every created thing, and 
makes us all from men to rocks into one vast mystic 
organism. And as a factor, a responsive atom, in this 
mystic organism, every man, not only the poet, but even 
the most ordinary man, has a cosmic life, cosmic impres- 
sions, cosmic moods, which are nonpersonal, and some- 
times even contra-personal. As a ranchman expressed 
it: “Often when I camp here it has made me want to 
become the ground, become the water, become the trees, 
mix with the whole thing; not know myself from it; never 
unmix again.” Keep this cosmic life of the individual 
in mind, and we can explain the fact that when men are 
exhausted with work, or baffled by temptation, or over- 
whelmed in sorrow, they turn with a pathetic eagerness 
toward nature. Men may come and go, friendships may 


106 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


wear to shreds, all the personal conditions of life may 
change; but our great cosmic mother is out there yet with 
all her land and sea and sky. She will not fail us. She 
will not misunderstand us. She will not become weary 
of our importunate sorrow. She will swell our lament 
into volume with her wildest winds. ‘‘ Nature never did 
betray the heart that loved her.’’ Yes, there are times 
when a man needs a mountain much more than he needs 
a person. And if you insist upon calling this impersonal, 
mystical help from nature a revelation, your usage is 
improvident; and yet I have no unyielding objection to 
it, if we can only agree to limit the meaning and worth of 
the revelation. 

The Cosmos and the Christian. Another thing is neces-. 
sary in clearing the way for the point at issue: we must 
eliminate the Christian interpretation of the cosmos; for, 
in any searching discussion of natural revelation, that 
interpretation is of no significance whatever. Already 
the Christian has had supernaturally given to him the 
full divine message. Ever does he have in mind the 
facts and doctrines and principles of the Christian faith; 
ever does he have in heart a positive, a triumphant mani- 
festation of grace; and with such realities and vitalities 
in him, surely it is no wonder that to him the heavens 
‘declare the glory of God.” 

The Point at Issue. Let us, then, see precisely what 
our real question is. It is not whether the cosmos affords 
theistic indication. That question we have answered 
affirmatively. Nor is our question whether nature does 
not grant an uplift of solace to the individual in his 
cosmic moods and needs. That question we also answer 
affirmatively. Nor is our question whether nature does 
not express to the Christian believer much of the majesty 
and wisdom and purpose of God. That question is not 
pertinent and should be entirely eliminated. The point 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 107 


at issue is definitely this: whether there is in the cosmos, 
for the moral person, such a revelation as is necessary to 
enable him to move on in the religious process of his life. 

A Frank Word Concerning Nature. A most striking 
passage in the most forceful plea ever made for the ade- 
quacy of nature is this: ‘‘The creation speaketh a univer- 
sal language. . . . It cannot be counterfeited; it cannot 
be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. 
It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall 
be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the 
earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and all 
worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that it is 
necessary for him to know.” This passage from The 
Age of Reason I quote to show how completely the as- 
surance of deism has passed away. In point, compare 
these words of Thomas Paine with the last published 
words of Herbert Spencer. The fact is that the more 
men know about nature, and the more they rely upon 
nature, the more agnostic and hopeless they become. 
For one thing, men need to be told a few plain things 
about themselves, about their origin, about their spiritual 
condition, and about their destiny. And in nature there 
is no perspicuous anthropology. Even the few natural 
hints are so dubious that they must be treated by religious 
faith and coaxed into meaning. 

This dubiousness in anthropology, though, is not na- 
ture’s main flaw, by any means. Her main flaw is that 
she nowhere manifests righteousness. Of course, if with 
many of the rationalists we regard the human conscience 
as natural we can find a moral imperative in nature. To 
me, however, man’s moral life is supernatural. But were 
we willing to pass over this difference of view the practicai 
question would remain, namely, Can a man discover in 
the external world any supplement, or even any indorse- 
ment, of his own moral concern? To this practical ques- 


108 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


tion I must, without hesitation, answer, No. I do not go 
_as far as Ferdinand Brunetiére goes when he declares that 
“nature is immoral, thoroughly immoral.” I am not 
altogether satisfied with that bitter indictment in which 
John Stuart Mill says that “nearly all the things which 
men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another 
are nature’s everyday performances.”’ I simply hold that 
nature is nonmoral, that she pays no tribute to righteous- 
ness, that from her works alone no person could ever learn 
that the Creator has any ethical interest. Sometimes we 
are told, I know, that immorality is overtaken and pun- 
ished under natural law; but the opinion is very super- 
ficial. Strictly considered, the punishment falls, not upon 
the immorality, but upon the incautious manner of it. 
In discrete ways moral principle is constantly violated, 
and yet the transgressor escapes as far as any cosmic law 
is concerned. Nature ever says, ““Thou shalt not bun- 
gle.’ But she never says, “Thou shalt not do wrong.”’ 
I was intending to stop here, but I cannot; I must go 
farther and almost agree with Mill and Brunetiére. There 
is no equity in nature. She knows nothing of what is 
meant by that noble English phrase, “Give him fair 
play.”’ She will herself cripple a man with all kinds of 
weaknesses and then crush him because he is weak. Not 
only so, but sometimes these weaknesses are a result, 
under natural law, of the action of some other man for 
whom the cripple is in no degree responsible. That is, 
nature is so indifferent to equity that she strikes the wrong 
man. Once study heredity in connection with the doe- 
trine of the survival of the fittest, and there comes to 
view a mass of irresponsible suffering and failure which 
antagonizes every human idea of equity, and even moves 
us to moral indignation by its pitiless cruelty. But we 
are urged to expand our horizon and take a larger look at 
life, A certain journalist has written these words to 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 109 


stimulate joy: ‘There is great consolation in realizing 
that even though we go to the wall it is by a great and 
impersonal law, and just as surely as we do go something 
better survives by our overthrow.” To this I instantly 
answer that to make inequity impersonal does not turn 
it into equity; and if we go to the wall unjustly, nothing 
better can survive by our overthrow. There can be no 
progress, no universal gain, by any procedure which is 
intrinsically unfair. The only goal, yea, the only cosmic 
goal, worth reaching must be expressive, absolutely ex- 
pressive, of moral concern. There is no more expanded 
horizon; there is no larger look at life. We will be intol- 
erant of any evolutionary scheme which tries to substitute 
increase of potency and perfection in adjustment for per- 
fection in ethical quality. If we try to explain the 
mystery of existence at all, let us begin by refusing to 
explain it in any way which violates our intuitive sense 
of justice and debases our moral manhood. 

A Perilous Crisis. This inequity of nature, or this 
nonmoral attitude of nature (if you prefer the more 
moderate contention) leads to a crisis of very great peril; 
and the crisis is precipitated logically in this manner: 
To obtain a belief in the supernatural Person we make 
use of our moral personality on the one side and of the 
theistic indications of the cosmos on the other side; but 
the instant we have these two sides in juxtaposition there 
stands out a pronounced contradiction. Our whole sense 
of the supernatural, our whole moral constitution, de- 
mands a God who is absolutely righteous, and yet we are 
unable to discover even one trace of righteous intention 
in the very cosmos which we believe he himself has made. 
And so, after all our long effort to be thoroughly true to 
our inner being, we are suddenly flung into a pit of con- 
fusion. Jt 1s perilous. And when I call the situation 
perilous I am not merely noting the dire logical outcome, 


110 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


I am not using the language of theoretical fright, but the 
language of actual human experience. With many men 
this crisis is the precise point where they have lost their 
theism, their religious faith, and even their former con- 
fidence in the reliability of their own moral intuitions. 
Indeed, there is probably no strain so severe upon a sensi- 
tive soul trying to live a profound life as that strain which 
he experiences in trying to harmonize his moral ideal with 
the brutal facts of the universe. More than six tenths 
of all aggressive pessimism, like that of Schopenhauer, 
and a smaller fraction of that dumb despair which has 
been called ‘the ache of modernism,” have originated, I 
believe, in the awful shock of the realization that the 
holy of holies in man’s nature is not only not indorsed, 
but is even positively violated from pinnacle to crevice 
by the natural methods of the cosmos. 

The Religious Process in Stoppage. This apparent in- 
equity of nature results, further, in a total stoppage of 
the religious movement in man’s life. Let us see how 
this blocking comes about. Before studying religion we 
examined, you will remember, the moral process taken 
alone; and we concluded that it had no possible outcome 
in personal peace; and this simply, or mainly, because 
the moral man had no organizing motive of ethical love. 
Thus, even in morality, we discovered a basic need of 
love. Then, taking up our task in larger relations, we 
passed into the more comprehensive religious process; 
and there, in the religious process, we at last came to a 
personal bearing of faith toward the supernatural which 
was so charged with ethical quality that we named it the 
religion of moral faith. But even this, although truly 
the religion of the moral person, we found to be an un- 
finished thing—an ineffectual fragment straining toward 
the ultimate religious experience. And here again the 
lack, the one thing essential to progress, was the motive 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH iif 


of love. The religion of moral faith must be enriched 
by love. Emphasize, then, this point: that man, to 
organize his entire life as a moral, personal individual, 
and to advance in religious experience, must have some- 
thing more than ethical intention and personal trust— 
he must have ethical love, he must actually love the super- 
natural as the moral infinite. How, then, is such a love 
rendered possible? First of all, there needs to be a change 
in man’s conceptions. His supernatural, his moral In- 
finite, must drop its vagueness and become to him a real 
supernatural Person. And in our examination of the 
theistic argument we saw how this important change 
might fully and legitimately take place; we saw how man, 
by being deeply true to himself as a person and a religious 
person, could, in his effort to explain the problem of the 
cosmos, obtain a belief in the existence of a personal God. 
Right here, though, we enter, I say, a situation which 
is both perilous in its staring contradiction and a total 
stoppage of the religious process. Why is it such a stop- 
page? Because it is a situation absolutely uncreative 
of love in man for God. Why so? Because there is on 
God’s part no revelation of an ethical love for man. It 
is a waste of time to argue with the extra-optimist whether 
in the cosmos there are not evidences of divine love as a 
barely personal interest in man and consequent care for 
man—say, some such interest and care as an artist or an 
author has for his creations—for were there the largest 
amount of such love, it would not have even the slightest 
worth for the religious movement. The important mat- 
ter is not the existence of interest and care, but the kind 
of interest and care which exist. They must be moral. 
The interest must kindle in the very heart of righteousness 
and then burst out like leaping flame into a real care to 
secure the moral welfare of man. Allow me to tear the 
situation open. Man is trying to complete his life by 


112 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


reaching a perfect religious experience. To move on 
toward that consummation, man must love God. To 
love God, God must be to a mana Person. To love this 
supernatural Person, man must be convinced that he, 
man, is loved; yes, the Person must show such unques- 
tionable interest in man as to overcome all the inherent 
fear of the supernatural. But this is not enough. And 
just here theologian after theologian has gone astray. 
This revelation of divine love must itself be moral. The 
love must not flinch away from supreme moral concern. 
Man is a moral person, and he cannot love a God who is 
less than a moral person, and the God indicated by the 
inequity of nature is less than a moral person. There- 
fore man’s entire moral and religious movement is in 
total stoppage—unless, in some extraordinary way, there 
shall come help. 


THE INTRODUCTION 





ParT SECOND 
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 





THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE MORAL 
PERSON 


Die Offenbarung Gottes in Jesus Christus, auf welcher die christliche 
Religion beruht, ist also nicht so zu verstehn, als handelte es sich um 
ihn als eine isolirte Erscheinung in der Geschichte. Es handelt sich 
vielmehr um den grossen geschichtlichen Zusammenhang, in dessen 
Mittlepunkt er steht.— Julius Kaftan, Dogmatik, s. 39. 


If Christianity is found to be matched to human nature as no 
other system can pretend to be, and as cannot be accounted for by 
any wisdom of which man of himself is capable, then we are justified 
in referring it to God as its author. In the proportion in which this 
fitness of Christianity to the constitution, the cravings, the distress, 
of the soul, to man’s highest and holiest aspirations, becomes a matter 
of living experience, the force of the argument will be appreciated. 
It will be understood in the degree in which it is felt—George Park 
Fisher, The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, revised edition 
of 1902, p. 89. 


When two religions say the same thing, it is not always the same 
thing.—F. Max Miuiller, Preface to collected works. 


But the true originality of a system of moral teaching depends not so 
much upon the elements of which it is composed as upon the manner 
in which they are fused into a symmetrical whole, upon the propor- 
tionate value that is attached to different qualities, or, to state the 
same thing by a single word, upon the type of character that is formed. 
Now, it is quite certain that the Christian type differs, not only in 
degree, but in kind, from the pagan one.—W. E. H. Lecky, Rational- 
lism in Europe, i, 313, 314, revised Appleton edition. 


IX. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE MORAL 
PERSON 


BErore taking up those discussions which, in our plan, 
are definitely to lead up to the system of doctrine, we 
should note and emphasize the profound connection 
between the two parts of the Introduction. Let us, 
therefore, relate the Christian religion to man, the moral 
person. 

THE Work oF THE Hoty SPIRIT 

This is not a fitting place in which fully to consider the 
work of the Holy Spirit; but something needs to be said, 
because the Holy Spirit is the real dynamic of the Chris- 
tian religion. Surely there are historic facts and mental 
conceptions which the Holy Spirit utilizes, but these facts 
and conceptions are but useful pivots of power and not 
the power itself. The power itself is the energizing will 
of the Holy Spirit. Without him, the Christian religion 
would be, at the most, but an empty intention to rescue 
men. The rationalists, some of the extreme ones, are 
wont to say that we need more truth, that truth will lift 
men out of all their failure. We do need truth, more 
and more of it; but under all that need is the paramount 
need of a vitalized moral personality. 

The Holy Spirit and Personality. First a all, in this 
new and extraordinary Christian dispensation, the Holy 
Spirit affects personality itself. The Christian religion is 
most intensely personal. As some one has said, “The 
Christian message has a personal pronoun at each end of 
it—it is, ‘I say unto You!’’’ But the full fact is finer 
yet—that personal You is so empowered by the Holy 
Spirit as to be quite another person in possibilities. 


118 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


‘“‘ Arouse man,’’ Schelling once said, “‘ to the consciousness 
of what he zs, and he will soon learn to be what he ought.” 
This is about half true, true in its appreciation of the 
worth of full self-consciousness, false in its lack of ap- 
preciation of the significance of personal freedom. You 
cannot make any man right by intensifying his self- 
consciousness. But it is true, and momentously true, 
that no man can have a profound moral life until he has 
a profound personal life. And the Holy Spirit does give 
to man a profounder personal life. He invigorates self- 
grasp, clarifies self-estimate, and enables a person to re- 
main longer in self-conscious experience. Many a man 
before the Spirit awakened him was constantly dropping 
down into the individual, was constantly at the mercy of 
the automatic overrush. He was, in fact, a person only 
by right of classification, for hardly for a moment could 
he stay in personal vision. His self-consciousness was like 
the moon on a night when the whole sky is tossing with 
clouds. Now and again, for an instant, there is a flying 
gleamof gold, and then it is all lost in the overrush of clouds. 

The Holy Spirit and the Conscience. In the closest 
psychological relation with this vitalization of personality 
is the greater influence of the Holy Spirit upon conscience. 
I myself believe that all the features of conscience are 
not a natural outcome of the personal process—although 
they do give teleological eventuation and significance to 
that process—but rather the immediate work of the Holy 
Spirit. Conscience is God’s living relation to man, medi- 
ated by the Holy Spirit. In any case, though, it can 
hardly be practically questioned that conscience is quick- 
ened under the Christian dispensation. Moral distinction 
is probably not changed; but moral obligation, and 
especially moral settlement, are affected by what may 
be called the Christian exertion of the Holy Spirit. Per- 
haps I had better briefly give my full view: The Holy 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 119 


Spirit does something for every man; but he will do more 
for the moral person who, in anytime, or in any place, 
makes his best personal response to the initiative moral 
pressure ; and he will do still more for men in any situation 
where the Christian message is declared; and he will do 
still more for men where the Christian message is declared 
in a situation which is quick with the faith and love and 
sacrifice belonging to actual Christian experience. 


THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND MorAL LOVE 


The most unwholesome thing in the teaching of the 
mediating theology is its unqualified assertion that the 
dominating feature of Christianity is the love of God for 
man. Here is a statement of the type to which I refer: 
“The possession in Christ of the supreme revelation of 
God’s love and purpose constitutes the distinctive mark of 
Christianity.’’ In a general way, this statement is the 
truth, and might be adequate in certain parts of a popular 
sermon; but once placed and emphasized in theology it 
becomes as harmful as poison. In the person and work of 
Christ there is no manifestation of a divine love which is 
nothing more than a personal interest, nothing more than 
a going out of the heart toward men. There is love, in- 
finite love, manifest, but it is moral love. It is love in, 
through, and because of, perfect righteousness. Man is 
loved as a moral person capable of moral response. He 
is loved for moral ends. His only joyous outcome is 
moral, moral, moral. The Christian religion begins, con- 
tinues, and culminates in moral concern. 

The Indirect Preparations. I have spoken of the sig- 
nificance which nature has for the individual; and I have 
also indicated the educational value of man’s conception 
of nature over against his conception of the supernatural; 
but now there is more to be said. Nature, by the very 
fact of her failure to show moral concern, makes it im- 


120 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


possible for the moral person to stay in nature. The 
individual, the animal, could stay in nature forever; but 
the moral person must find another world. “He must 
fly the awful vacuum.” Thus, nature tends to create 
an urgency in man’s need of another revelation of God, 
which shall fully manifest moral love. 

This is also the point of view, I think, from which we 
may see the true Christian interpretation of the heathen 
religions. With certain exceptions, or at least with cer- 
tain hesitations in decision, I cannot regard these religions 
as mere combinations of superstition. Doubtless there 
is in them much superstition, but to the superstition are 
joined many elements which are truly religious. Con- 
sidered psychologically, and not historically, and not 
practically, they are like some of the debased forms of 
the Christian religion itself, say like the Roman Catholic. 
But, as far as I know, there is not in any one of these 
heathen religions a conception of divine love as moral. 
Speaking of the beliefs of men living under the ethnic re- 
ligions, Professor Seeley has said, ‘‘ They have believed in 
gods that were beautiful, powerful, immortal, happy, but 
not benevolent.’’ As he uses the word benevolent, he 
means a disposition to help men, to secure their well- 
being; and this disposition must have a moral origin. 
And yet I prefer to say that the gods of the ethnic re- 
ligions have no righteous concern for men. If they show 
any interest in men it does not spring from moral concern, 
and does not amount to a righteous passion. And, when 
I study these religions in a comprehensive spirit, with a 
purpose to relate all things, under the providence of God, 
to the Christian faith, it becomes evident that they, like 
nature, are an indirect preparation for the ultimate man- 
ifestation of God’s moral love toward men. Here, again, 
the moral person gets an urgency ; he cannot rest, he must 
find another world, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 121 


The Direct Preparation. Of far greater importance, 
though, than these indirect preparations, in nature and 
in the heathen religions, is the direct preparation in the 
history of the Jewish people. Even with the large place 
the Old Testament has come to hold in Christian scholar- 
ship, how few there are who realize its fundamental im- 
portance to the Christian religion! For example, think 
of a man so alert and open-minded as is Professor Adolf 
Harnack saying this: “‘ Jesus Christ’s teaching will at once 
bring us by steps which, if few, will be great, to a height 
where its connection with Judaism is seen to be only a 
loose one.” Could any utterance made by responsible 
Christian scholarship be more careless, more superficial, 
more deeply untrue? One would suppose that even an 
ordinary examination of our Lord’s own attitude toward 
the Old Testament would lead to a conviction that his 
teaching had close connection with the dispensation which 
he came to fulfill, The ethical ground of the gospel. of 
Jesus Christ comes almost entire from the Old Testament; 
and the daring emphasis upon grace is made wholesomely 
expedient by that long, unflinching, tremendous moral 
imperative in the history from Abraham to Amos. In 
truth, those very severities which we now pronounce 
unchristian were for an ethical and preparatory end, for 
they tended to shut out Jehovah’s people from all the 
insidious fascination of the deadly immorality about 
them. How can any student of comparative religion fail 
to realize that the mighty ethical momentum of Chris- 
tianity comes from the life of the Old Testament? That 
moral law, given in such definiteness and yet in such 
forceful grandeur that it penetrates all our civilization; 
that poetry in the psalms which always burns, and some- 
times blazes, with the enthusiasm of righteousness; and 
those towering prophets of moral insistence who stand 
out like a range of mountains in a flat world—what, J 


122 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ask, could Christianity be or become or accomplish with- 
out that direct preparation? A loose connection! Why, the 
connection is so close that it is more than external, more 
than historical, it is an historical connection made spirit- 
ual in an organic plan, it is a connection through which 
the Holy Spirit to-day brings Christian things to pass. 
There is, probably, not a typical Christian conversion 
in which the Old Testament is not effectively involved; 
nor a typical Christian experience which is not by the 
Old Testament nourished and balanced and enlarged. 
The New Conception of God. In connection with this 
direct preparation for the revelation of moral love, there 
arises a new conception of God, a conception far beyond 
anything possible in bare theism. God is regarded as a 
person, holy, in action, for the moral rescue of his people. 
The God evident in the Old Testament is not an “ Eternal 
Somewhat,’’ but an Eternal Someone, with personal plan 
and self-conscious volition. The contention of Matthew 
Arnold at this point is really not worthy of serious 
notice. And, further, this personal God is holy. Later 
we will try to find out just what is meant by holiness; 
but, in any possible interpretation, holiness can be re- 
lied upon to protect every moral interest. Again, this 
holy God is conceived of as in action. He is in 
earnest even unto the actual deed. It has been said 
that the God of the Old Testament is no other than 
the God of deism. But the God of deism is an in- 
finite idler. ‘‘He sits forever doing nothing in. the 
sky-parlor of the universe.” On the contrary, the 
Lord God of Israel is ever intensely concerned with 
events and ever strenuously doing deeds. Again, in the 
center of all this interest and activity, we find the first 
note of a divine redemption. God is active, God is in 
earnest, to rescue his people unto righteousness. And 
when this redemptional idea is augmented by the Mes- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 123 


sianic idea there is a very direct and a very complete 
preparation for the comprehensive plan of redemption 
as unfolded in the New Testament. 

The Christian Object of Faith. However much we may 
make of this revelation in the Old Testament, it cannot 
provide the true Christian object of faith. The Messiah 
himself, as a Redeemer to appear on somewhere in the 
years, is not able to meet man’s entire need and to com- 
plete the religious process. Nor is Jesus Christ as man, 
or as an exalted creature, the Christian object of faith. 
Nor is Jesus Christ as God, or as God-man, the Christian 
object of faith. If we pause with only the person, we 
shall altogether fail to catch the potent Christian 
peculiarity. The new object, the Christian object of 
faith, is Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, as the 
actual Redeemer. The conception is two-ply: First, 
there is the person who is God incarnate in man, who is 
therefore both human and divine. On the one side, 
Christ is so truly man that he is our own Brother, we own 
him; never can he get beyond us, never can he escape our 
humanity. And precisely because he is our own we have 
no dread of him. Even in our sins he can get at us. 
Thus, the terribleness of the naked supernatural, and the 
isolation of the God of bare theism, and the ethical 
rigidity of Jehovah, are taken away. And yet, on the 
other side, Christ is so absolutely God to us that he is 
our finality in power, in authority, and even in moral 
ideal. All the moral concern there is we find in him. 
Beyond him there is no demand whatsoever. It is the 
wonder of wonders, but the moral law now looks toward 
us in friendship, without dropping an iota of moral requi- 
sition. Second, this divine-human person is our actual 
Redeemer. He is not out there inthe realm of expecta- 
tion—he 7s here! The only Son of God has actually come 
and has actually completed his redemptional work. By 


124 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


his death he has literally made full atonement for the 
sins of all mankind. The Christian object of faith, then, 
is Jesus Christ, God and man in one person, with the 
finished work of redemption in his victorious hand. The 
person and the atonement must be woven into one asser- 
tion—“ Fesus Christ, and him cructfied.” Thus, in the 
Christian religion, we obtain the perfect revelation of 
moral love. 

The Response of the Moral Person. Probably no two 
men ever reach the Christian experience by the same 
combination of features: and yet we can, I think, dis- 
cover the main features which are combined in any 
typical case. They are these: 1. A profounder sense of 
moral responsibility. This is the psychological start and 
is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. When he em- 
powers personality, the man is lifted out of the auto- 
matic slavery and there is a keener sense of personal 
freedom. But the result is not, as we might at first sup- 
pose, a feeling of self-sufficiency. For the man’s moral 
nature is vitalized at the same time, and so the keener 
sense of freedom is over against a severer moral demand; 
and the total result is a profounder sense of moral respon- 
sibility. 2. A greater dissatisfaction with all the in- 
adequacies. In this profounder moral mood not only 
nature and morality, but all religious bearings and en- 
deavors, if less than Christian, seem to the moral person 
as empty and useless. 3. A conviction of sin. Grant 
this moral person, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and 
restless under all he has found and all he has done, the 
new and severely ethical conception of God; allow him a 
swift vision of the awful holiness of God, a holiness which 
searches like lightning and never condones any wrong 
thing; show him how intensely angry God is over un- 
righteousness, how he personally takes it to heart, and 
grieves over it, and actively uses all the resources of the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 125 


Godhead to destroy it—let the man once see God, and the 
result is a torturing sense of sin. It is much more than 
a feeling that conscience has been violated ; it is a feeling 
that in our wrong we are against God, that we are in 
willful antagonism with the Holy One himself. 4. Chris- 
tian repentance. This, too, is very much deeper than 
that initial repentance which we found to be possible as 
a passage out of morality. It is thus deeper for two 
reasons: In the first instance, because it begins in the con- 
viction of sin, and so gets a tremendous moral momentum. 
In the second instance, because it is a response to the 
revelation of moral love in our Lord’s person and death. 
5. Christian faith. This is like and yet unlike that moral 
faith which we found to be possible in the religious proc- 
ess. The likeness lies in the fact that the Christian faith 
is also a bearing of trust; and in the further fact that the 
trust is moral in its nature. The unlikeness lies in the 
fact that the Christian faith keeps a hatred of all sin, in 
a peculiar ethical poignancy which originates in Christian 
repentance ; and in the further fact that the heart-interest 
belonging to any kind of faith has now become a positive 
- personal love with a definite object. No man, in sorrow 
over his sin, can trust Jesus Christ without beginning to 
love him. 6. Moral love. This Christian love for the 
Saviour, however, demands separate and most emphatic 
treatment. There are four points which should be care- 
fully noted: The first point is psychological. The love 
is inherent in faith itself; is, indeed, but a personal 
accentuation of the heart-thrust of faith. You would 
almost say that Christian love is moral faith made per- 
fect. In any case, Christian love means the largest ap- 
preciation of mian’s heart-life. Thus Christianity keeps 
insisting that the greatest thing in a man is not his head, 
but his heart. The second point is ethical. This Chris- 
tian love is moral love. Not only does it express the 


126 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


consummate endeavor of the moral person over against 
his ideal; but also it will, when once perfected, when once 
fully enthroned, organize a man, make him one harmo- 
nious being, a satisfied and passionate lover of righteous- 
ness. In all the universe there is nothing more abso- 
lutely moral than the perfect love of a Christian man 
for his Saviour. The third point is religious. By means 
of this Christian love the whole religious process is lifted 
out of stoppage. The last point is Christian. This 
moral love which enables the moral person to move on in 
his religious life is purely. a Christian thing. For it there 
have been various kinds of preparations, to it there have 
been various kinds of contributions; but the one thing 
which has actually rendered it possible is God’s revelation 
of his own moral love for man in the person and death of 
his only Son, Jesus Christ our Redeemer. 


THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY 


We are now ready, I think, to gather into compact 
statement the essential peculiarity of the Christian 
religion. The most striking book about Christianity 
which has been published in recent years is Professor 
Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums, really a series 
of sixteen public lectures delivered in Berlin University 
during the winter semester of 1899-1900. Nothing could 
more fully indicate the theological drift of our day than 
the fact that this book has received, in almost all quarters, 
an unstinted meed of praise. ‘At last a true prophet has 
appeared, and we have a voice of authority.’ To me, 
however, the book is not so remarkable for what there is 
in it as for what is left out of it. You can, in these 
lectures, readily recognize Christianity ; and yet, after all, 
it is not Christianity, at least it is not fundamental Chris- 
tianity, which you recognize. It is as if a very skillful 
artist had painted the contour of the body of a man so 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 127 


perfectly as to make recognition instant and indubitable, 
but had left out the man’s face altogether, never once sug- 
gested by so much asa stroke that the man had any face. 

What, then, is Christianity? Not in its accidents, not 
in its passing historical forms, not in its special applica- 
tions to definite tasks and problems, however important 
they may be; but in its intrinsic nature, in its basal 
Wesen—when the Christian religion is laid bare to its 
ultimate peculiarities, what are they? The true answer, 
I believe, springs quickly from our discussion. They are 
three: 

1. A Peculiarity in Revelation. God has revealed his 
moral hatred of sin and his moral love of man in the in- 
carnate person and atoning death of his only Son, Jesus 
Christ our Saviour. 

2. A Peculiarity in Response. The Christian response 
to this revelation is in a profound repentance which 
culminates in faith in Christ as a personal Saviour, a 
faith that is quickened by moral love. 

3. A Peculiarity in Life. The Christian religion is a 
life of moral love. The whole being of the Christian man 
is organized about the central motive of love. First of 
all, and through all, and under all, he loves his Redeemer 
and his God; then he loves all men, not as a philanthro- 
pist loves all men, but as Christ loves all men, seeking 
their moral salvation, and their everlasting rejoicing in 
the kingdom of God. The Christian man has much work 
to do, many tasks to meet, and many problems to solve; 
but in all work and tasks and problems his perpetual 
purpose is to express his moral love for God and man. 
This peculiarity of life, together with the peculiarity in 
response, together with the peculiarity in revelation, is 
the one convincing Christian apologetics. The true re- 
ligion is that one which fits into man’s nature and com- 
pletes his life. 





THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE HUMAN 
RACE 


There is such a natural principle of attraction in man toward man 
that having trod the same tract of land . . . becomes the occasion of 
contracting acquaintances and familiarities many years after; for 
anything may serve the purpose. Thus relations merely nominal are 
sought and invented, not by governors, but by the lowest of the people; 
which are found sufficient to hold mankind together in little frater- 
nities and copartnerships: weak ties indeed, and what may afford 
fund enough for ridicule, if they are absurdly considered as the real 
principles of that union; but they are in truth merely the occasions, 
as anything may be of anything, upon which our nature carries us on 
according to its own previous bent and bias; which occasions, therefore, 
would be nothing at all, were there not this prior disposition and bias 
of nature. . . . And therefore to have no restraint from, no regard to 
others in our behavior, is the speculative absurdity of considering 
ourselves as single and independent, as having nothing in our nature 
which has respect to our fellow creatures, reduced to action and prac- 
tice. And this is the same absurdity as to suppose a hand, or any 
part, to have no natural respect to any other, or to the whole body.— 
Joseph Butler, Sermon upon the Social Nature of Man. 


As the conditions of men become equal among a people, individuals 
seem of less, and society of greater, importance; or, rather, every 
citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost in the crowd, and 
nothing stands conspicuous but the great and imposing image of the 
people at large —Alexts DeTocqueville, Democracy in America, ii, 357. 


Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the world 
with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and belonging 
to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society.— John Rae, 
Contemporary Socialism, p. 219. 


This is the fundamental truth out of which comes the regulative law 
of Jesus about social life. Society does not exist for itself, but for 
the individual; and man goes into it not to lose, but to find, himself. 
. . . Nowhere do we find on earth that picture of society reconstructed 
by the idea of Jesus, society around the throne of God, which shines 
out upon us from the mysterious promises of the Apocalypse; the 
glory of which society is to be this—that while the souls stand in their 
vast choruses of hundreds of thousands, and all chant the same anthems, 
and all work together in the same transcendent duties, yet each bears 
the sacred name written on the flesh of his own forehead, and carries 
in his hand a white stone on which is written a new name which no 
man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. It is individuality em- 
phasized by company, and not lost in it, because the atmosphere in 
which the company is met is the idea of Jesus, which is the Father- 
hood of God.—Phillips Brooks, The Influence of Jesus, the Bohlen 
Lectures, 1879, pp. 98, 99, 100. 


X. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE HUMAN 
RACE 


Hap our aim been comprehensively anthropological 
we should, in the first part of the introduction, have 
studied man not only as an individual moral person, but 
also as a social person. But our aim was narrowly 
economic, yes, jealously economic; the single intention 
being to emphasize man’s moral life in such a manner 
as to show, beyond the possibility of obscuration, the 
teleological connection which exists between this moral 
life and the Christian religion. But now that this eco- 
nomic work is done we need to bring into full view the 
social side of man’s nature, for this social fact has very 
extraordinary consideration in the Christian system. It 
may be true, as Professor Ritschl has said, that ‘all 
religions are social” ; but Christianity is peculiarly social 
—indeed, so thoroughly social that neither its doctrines 
nor its method nor its spirit can be understood and ex- 
pressed in the terms of individualism. 


THE SociaL Fact 


Of all of Emerson’s Orphic sayings, the one most 
arbitrarily untrue is this: ‘Man is insular and cannot 
be touched. Every man is an infinitely repellent orb and 
holds his individual being on that condition.” Exactly 
the opposite is the truth. Every man is planned for 
human fellowship and can live his normal, his deepest 
life only in relations of such fellowship. He must give 
and take. He must divide his spoil with other men. He 
must rob men of their experiences, their sorrows, their 
joys, until his soul is like a camp full of captured treasure. 


132 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Just as the individual needs and craves nature—the trees, 
the fields, the sky, the ocean—so the human person needs 
and craves men. And the greater the person is in pure 
humanity the more men it takes to satisfy his inner 
craving. A man like Charles Sumner, unless enlarged 
as Sumner was by a generous philanthropy, can get on 
quite contentedly with a few cultured friends; but 
Abraham Lincoln had to have all sorts and conditions 
of men, and thousands of them. Sometimes, in selfishness 
or by necessity, a man will isolate himself, perhaps will 
dare to believe that his soul can better ripen, or that his 
work can better be done, without any human fellowship; 
but the days become more and more sapless, and finally 
his whole being springs into violent protest. In 1851 
Thomas Arnold (the younger) wrote to his mother as 
follows: “I think the greatest mistake I have ever made 
was that of fancying that an honest man was sufficient 
society to himself, and that the growth and vigor of the 
intellect was compatible with loneliness. I remember 
well the first practical check that this feeling received. 
It was at Otago; I had made up my mind to go on foot a 
journey of three or four days into the unknown interior. 
I could get no one to accompany me, and I did not care 
for anyone. . . . As I struggled back over the mountains, 
almost sick with hunger, I could not help remarking 
within myself a longing to get back to the settlement 
and the haunts of men equal to the desire which I had 
felt a day or two before to penetrate deep into the silence 
and solitude of the bush. ‘No,’ I said to myself, as I 
leaned on a great bowlder at a spot whence the eye com- 
manded a far-stretching plain, on which not the faintest 
curling smoke told of the presence of man, ‘thou wast 
not made to be alone!’ A sort of horror fell upon me, 
the might of Nature seemed to rise up—irresistible, all- 
pervading—and to press down upon my single life. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 133 


From the hour that I reached the settlement I became, 
I think, a wiser man.”’ 

Personal Loneliness. One of the most significant 
things connected with man’s inner life is his experience 
of loneliness. This experience is one of those common- 
place matters which we take for granted, just as-we 
take bodily weariness for granted, but which on close 
examination becomes indicant of a deep cause. Why is 
a man ever lonely? Some writers have answered the 
question in this way: A man, like certain animals, has a 
gregarious instinct ; and so when he is separated from men 
he simply is restless because the gregarious instinct is 
not satisfied ; this restlessness is what we mean by loneli- 
ness. This answer might possibly be adequate to explain 
our loneliness when we are away from men; but how can 
it explain our loneliness when we are with men? Ona 
city street, in a throng of people, a man may be as lonely 
as he would be if alone in the Black Forest. No, the 
cause of human loneliness is not a gregarious animal 
instinct, but is rooted in the very nature of personality 
itself. What a lonely man seeks is not so much the 
superficial human contact; the touch of a man’s hand, 
the look of his eye, the word of his mouth—these are but 
means to an end. The end is personal companionship. 
The lonely man wants a reciprocity in personality. He 
wants to enter the life of another self-conscious being 
who can understand him and “trade experiences.”’ As 
a man in trouble said to his faithful dog, “‘ Yes, yes; but 
you cannot help me, for you do not know anything about 
it.” So the need is personal; but now we must go further. 
Why does a man need this personal reciprocity? I an- 
swer: Because the process of personality is a lonely 
process. In self-consciousness a man is necessarily flung 
into isolation. And in this personal isolation there are 
two experiences: One of these, the first experience, is 


134 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


that joyous sense of freedom which we have termed 
“the uplift of self-supremacy.” This first experience, 
though, is speedily followed by another which is not 
joyous, namely, the initial realization of personal isola- 
tion. It is in this second experience, when in self- 
consciousness a man stands out to himself like one slender, 
separate match burning under the vast expanse of the 
night-sky, that the lonely soul cries out for men. Still 
we are not done. Why does a man, in this mood of 
personal isolation, feel such a need of fellowship with men? 
Because one feature of self-consciousness is self-estimate, 
and when a man comes, with any degree of thoroughness, 
to place estimate upon self he perceives his own fragmen- 
tariness, his own need of supplement. He feels as a 
self-conscious leaf might feel blowing about away from 
the tree. Andaman feels in this way because his incom- 
pleteness is a fact. He is an unfinished item, a splinter 
of acomprehensive plan. And it is not merely that he is 
finite and needs to be filled out by the Infinite God—that 
isa larger point to be placed fully in another connection ; 
no, it is that every man is made for other men—is pur- 
posely created jagged so as to fit into other men—is 
planned to be a reciprocal factor in a great social organism. 
And this great social organism is the human race. 


THE HuMAN RACE 


First of all, if it is possible, let us lift our conception 
of the human race out of that crass and materialistic 
realism which has ruined so much theology, and vitiated 
so much philosophy, and colored the theories, nearly all 
of the theories, of modern science. Realism is of large 
worth as rhetoric—as the poetry of impressive speech— 
but in fundamental thinking it is nothing but perni- 
cious error. The human race has no solidarity in the 
realistic sense—it has no cohesion in entity—no actual 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 135 


coalescence like that of a body of water where the indi- 
vidual drop is swallowed out of meaning and even out of 
existence. All the various and sliding forms of realism 
cannot be noted here; but this does not matter, for realism 
is so essentially false that there is not one sly form of 
it which has any reality whatsoever. It must be cleared 
out of theology root and branch. Mankind is solid 
simply in the sense that all men belong to one special 
divine plan where the design is to build a multitude of 
self-conscious, responsible fragments into one mighty 
organism socially and unselfishly interlaced. A man is 
not a racial thing, but a racial person. 

Nor am I willing to allow the racial idea to be entangled 
with monogenism. There are to-day orthodox cham- 
pions who seem to think that without Adam and Eve 
there could be no unity of the race. I do not sounder- 
stand the matter. That the race originated in one human 
pair is a view in fitness with the doctrine of racial unity, 
and a view essential to any fair and wholesome interpre- 
tation of the Bible; so much I myself must hold. But 
the idea of the unity of the race is profounder than mon- 
ogenism. Indeed, it is not only conceivable that men 
might make one organic race and yet not come from one 
pair; but also conceivable that men might come from 
one pair and yet not make an organic race at all. And 
the apologetic entanglement of racial unity with mono- 
genism is harmful because it tends to destroy Christian 
perspective. 

The Racial Organism. To understand the method 
and meaning of the racial organism, there are four points 
to be considered: 1. The common experience. Inasmuch 
as all the members of the race are persons, they have in 
common a personal experience, their entire inner life 
being interpreted through self-consciousness. Thus it is 
that men can understand each other, and can act upon 


136 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


that great principle, “ Put yourself in his place.” 2. The 
personal service. Add to this common experience per- 
sonal freedom, and we at once get the possibility of per- 
sonal service among men. If I so understand another 
man that I can really enter his life, and am free, I can 
enter his life with a purpose to help him, and can turn 
my appreciation of his situation into actual service. 
3. The individual supplement. But, again, men are not 
only persons, they are also individuals. And as indi- 
viduals they are unlike. Even if the elements of indi- 
viduality are the same, the combination of the elements 
is so different that the result is unlikeness. And so no 
two men are ever entirely alike. Nor do they tend to 
become alike. Under the stress of certain external cir- 
cumstances, men may take on an unvarying crust of 
conventional likeness. It is, however, nothing but a 
protective or imitative mannerism. Once crush the crust, 
and you will find a man underneath as original as Plato. 
Even the most commonplace man, “if you can only 
catch him,” will turn out to be a fresh wonder of indi- 
vidual peculiarity. Thus it is that no living thing in the 
universe is so exhaustlessly interesting as a man, just a 
man. For sheer tonic, one common man is, to anyone 
with patience, and especially to anyone with a purpose 
of service, of more worth than all the artificial excite- 
ments in existence. But the value of this individuality 
in the racial organism lies not mainly in the fact that it 
is intensely interesting, but rather in the fact that every 
man can, by means of his own peculiarity, add something 
to the size of another man’s life, and so actually help to 
complete that life. That is, we now have the principle 
of individual supplement or complement. Most deeply 
said, every man may become a larger being by the sym- 
pathetic capture or social reception of another’s peculiar 
experience. Let us pause fora moment and try to realize 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 137 


what a glorious law of compensation we have here. It is 
one special operation of that greatest of spiritual laws, 
he that loseth his life shall find it. Because a man is a 
free person he can purpose to lose his own interests and 
ambitions in the service of a fellow man; but when he 
renders this service, when he enters the life of his fellow, 
he not only helps him, but also is himself enlarged by all 
the peculiarity of the man whom he has helped. Thus 
by unselfish service one can add to himself man after 
man until verily he lives the life of the entire race! Is it 
not, then, very clear that in such a personal interlacing, 
that in such a tangle of social reciprocity, we have a better 
basis for a racial organism than is anything which realism 
has provided? Have we not a complex of members? 
Is not every member essential to the largest life of every 
other member? and also essential to the meaning of the 
total race? 4. Theracial plan. But our racial organism 
is not yet complete. The common experience and per- 
sonal service and individual supplement are but features 
in a racial plan under which humankind gets all its in- 
trinsic significance; under which the race is created, and 
redeemed, and providentially protected and guided, and 
made to move on toward a distant goal. Thus there 
is an end in view, a purpose in the organism, for which 
every racial feature has been designed, and to which every 
racial member may lend constant contribution. With 
this racial plan noted, we have every element necessary 
to form a racial organism. 


CHRISTIANITY AND THE RACE 
The Christian Method. In its method the Christian 
religion is social. Sight is never lost of the fact that a 
man is an individual, separate in personality and moral 
responsibility. And probably, on the whole, the respon- 
sible individual person is the more impressively in the 


138 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


forefront of the Christian message. But this responsible 
person is ever treated as a social person, needing other 
men for service and development and joy. Sometimes, 
it is true, the Christian leader has been individualistic, 
exclusive, ascetic; but in this he has gone far afield from 
the teaching and practice and spirit of our Lord and his 
apostles. Other things being normal, the truest Chris- 
tian is the greatest friend-seeker, but his friendships can- 
not be merely personal, or merely philanthropic. They 
must ‘‘let one anchor drop into the eternities.” 

Again, and more definitely, in the Christian church 
there is the one supreme provision to meet all personal 
loneliness. A man’s social need may overlap his home 
and all his special friendships, but never can it reach 
beyond the efficiencies of a real Christian church, organ- 
ized about the gospel and the two sacraments, dominated 
by the Holy Spirit, and glorified by the transcendent 
presence of our Lord. Take one item, the fellowship in 
Christian experience. How quickly men having that 
experience can understand each other, and how thor- 
oughly they can commune with each other, and how 
intensely they can love each other! In such company no 
man can wander “lonely as a cloud.” The personal 
process goes on—indeed, it goes on more profoundly than 
before—but all its lonelinesss is broken up by personal 
fellowship. It is like exploring Mammoth Cave with a 
company of intimate friends. The caverns and tortuous 
passages are there as aloof and subterranean as ever, but 
they are made friendly by the torches and faces and 
voices of those you love. 

The Racial Nexus. One of the most singular turns in 
the history of opinion is the modern Christian deprecia- 
tion of man’s bodily life, a depreciation which is, I am 
convinced, an indirect inheritance from heathen phi- 
losophy. In extreme and pathetic inanity, this deprecia- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 139 


tion is manifest in that vagary which has been deftly 
named “Christian science’; but none the less unmis- 
takably evident is the depreciation in some of the pre- 
vailing forms of belief and sentiment in the Christian 
church itself. For example, one can hardly find a popu- 
lar book bearing upon death and the future life, or even 
attend a funeral service (leaving out the fixed burial serv- 
ice), and be made aware that there are such Christian 
doctrines as those of the intermediate state and the 
resurrection of the body. In fact, judging from my own 
large experience with preachers, they are rapidly coming 
to reject these doctrines altogether or so to vaporize them 
that they lose all Christian meaning. 

That in the Christian view of man his body is placed 
under emphasis is so fully apparent as to require no dis- 
cussion. The emphasis is seen in almost every funda- 
mental doctrine. Our practical concern is with the 
reason, the rationale of the emphasis. In finding this 
rationale, we need no metaphysical discussion. What- 
ever the body may be in its final entity, we now have to 
do with it merely as the fixed instrument of man’s objec- 
tive life. Without a body a man could be a person; 
but without a body a man could not be a social person. 
The philosophical significance of the body is that it is the 
machinery of personal expression. By means of his body 
a person breaks isolation, and goes out, and gets a com- 
munity. This view, I am well aware, plows under all 
the forms of spiritism ; but they should be plowed under, 
for in no one of them is there an atom of Christianity. 
Indeed, the few grains of indisputable fact which they 
possess are so interpreted and so related as to become 
positively antichristian. 

Further: Man’s body is not only social, but also racial 
in its significance. The human body is the racial nexus. 
It connects the individual human person with his race. 


140 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


A man is not granted what I may call a generic body—a 
body to enable him to have social intercourse with any 
person and every person who may live somewhere in the 
outer spaces of the universe of God. No, he is granted 
the body of a man, a special body which nicely and pre- 
cisely enables him to get at men. Now, we can see the 
relation which the body has to the racial organism. It 
is by means of the human body that the racial organism 
can be actualized. It is by means of the human body 
that all those principles of social interlacing—the com- 
mon experience, the personal service, and the individual 
supplement—can, under the racial plan, be utilized. 
The strength of this view lies in two things, namely, in 
the way it fits into Christian doctrine, and in the way it 
catches the Christian spirit. Let us say, then, this: The 
Christian religion places extreme emphasis upon man’s 
body because his body was designed of God as the special 
instrument to secure a racial brotherhood. 

The Racial Brotherhood of Moral Persons. Only at 
the end of the system of doctrine can we fully apprehend 
the Christian plan concerning man, but we can glimpse 
the plan now in its connections with our introductory 
discussions. Man is a moral person, and the Christian 
religion ever regards this fact as of supreme importance. 
Not only is the plan so adjusted to every stage of the 
moral process that it forcefully meets a man wherever he 
may be in his development as a moral person, but also its 
perpetual aim is to protect the moral law and to complete 
man as a creature responsible under that law. Every 
part of the Christian salvation is ethical through and 
through. But when we come to method, when we con- 
sider how it is that the moral person is rounded out into 
peace and joy, there comes to view a most wonderful 
piece of social strategy. The one man, the individual 
person, is saved, but not alone—he is saved with others, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 14 


by means of others, for others, into others—he is saved 
im brotherhood. When his own entire life is at last or- 
ganized about the motive of moral love, this love is not 
for God alone, but for God and man; and so the individual 
event bursts its boundaries and becomes a racial event. 
In a word, the Christian aim is to save separate men’ in 
such a way that the final result will be a racial brother- 
hood of moral persons. 

Now and again the question is asked: Is the man 
created for the race, or is the race a mere method of 
completing the man? In a full Christian answer neither 
the man nor the race will be sacrificed. The race is 
planned to complete the man. In the final racial broth- 
erhood there will be, as Phillips Brooks says, “ Individ- 
uality emphasized by company.’ But there will also be 
company emphasized by individuality. The man is 
created to exalt the race just as truly as the race is de- 
signed to complete the man. The race itself has a teleo- 
logical meaning and will as an organism finally express in 
a peculiar manner the glory of God. 


ot 








CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY 





So, then, Reason rode fast on the straight highway, as Conscience 
showed him, till they came to the King.—Langland, Vision of Piers the 
Plowman. 


Le cceur a son ordre; l’esprit a le sien, qui est par principes et dé- 
monstrations; le coeur en a un autre. On ne prouve pas qu’on doit 
étre aimé en exposant par ordre les causes de l’amour: cela seroit ridi- 
cule.—Pensées de Pascal, xxv, liv. 


It is of slight importance for the person of the observer, whether 
this physical object which I see before me is in truth just as I see it, 
or other than I see it. But the whole constancy and strength and 
worth of the personality depends upon the question whether this 
moral good which I acknowledge as reality, or this moral demand 
which I experience as real, has an actual existence or not; the per- 
sonality cannot free itself therefrom without the innermost basis and 
the supreme aim of its life being lost. .. . Whether the sensuous 
objects, upon which the moral action shows itself, or upon which the 
moral idea appears, are that which they seem or something else, does 
not touch the truth of the moral relation in which I stand to them and 
they to me, does not prejudice the reality of the moral facts which by 
them become manifest for me; nay, it may happen in the reverse way— 
and this (as we shall afterward see) is the case with Christian cer- 
tainty—that precisely the abiding moral certainty forms the basis for 
the certainty as to the reality of historic, thus external and in the first 
place sensuously perceptible, facts. But this is yet only the one side, 
which the moral certainty presents to the observation. Along with 
it stands the other, that that certainty by no means bears the char- 
acter of universality and necessity in the measure and in the manner 
which belong, for example, to the mathematical certainty.—Fr. H. R. 
Frank, The System of Christian Certainty, pp. 104, 105. 


Umgekehrt darf der Konsensus der glaubigen Gemeinde seiner 
eigenen Gewissheit die starkste Stiitze sein. Wie nur innerhalb der 
Gemeinde der Glaube des einzelnen entsteht, so ist das tibereinstim- 
mende Zeugnis der Gemeinde dem Christen fortgehende Burgschaft 
fair die Realitat und Normalitat seiner Erfahrung.—L. Ihmels, Die 
christliche Wahrheitsgewissheit, u. s. w., Ss. 286. 


—_ 


XI. CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY 
KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF 


ECONOMICALLY to reach the heart of the matter, we 
will begin with the most simple forms of knowledge. A 
teacher in a primary school, holding up four apples, two 
in each hand, asks, “‘ What are these?’”’ A child answers, 
“Apples.” ‘How many in each hand?” “Two.” ‘How 
many in both hands?” ‘Four.’”’ ‘Why four?” ‘“Be- 
cause two and two make four.’”’ In these answers the 
child touches the two great realms of which man may 
have some knowledge, namely, the realm of reality and 
the realm of truth. The realm of reality comprises the 
entire range of being, or everything which actually is. 
The realm of truth is more limited, lying within the realm 
of reality, and comprising the entire system of rational 
principle. To be real, a thing must exist, and exist ac- 
cording to its nature. This expression, “according to 
its nature,” however, is merely a protective redundance, 
for a thing can exist only in accordance with its nature. 
A picture of an apple, for example, is a real picture, for 
it has the nature of a picture; but it is not a real apple, 
for it has not the nature of an apple. Likewise, a re- 
membrance of an apple, or a dream of an apple, is a real 
remembrance, or a real dream, but not a real apple. 

To be true, a thing must express rational principle. 
That two and two make four does express rational prin- 
ciple, and for that one reason it is true. If you wish to 
inquire how the child gets this rational principle, I will 
say that it is parcel in the fundamental make-up of the 
child. He finds it insistent there just as he finds moral 
distinction insistent there. And so he takes it for granted 


146 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


asa finality. If it be urged that the principle is a result- 
ant of experience, we need not object to the point, 
provided that the experience be regarded as necessary 
and not accidental, that is, as an experience which is 
intrinsic in the normal unfolding of the child’s life. If 
yet further you wish to inquire why this, or any rational 
principle is a finality, I will say that the reason is in God 
himself. He thinks rationally; rational principle is in- 
herent in his holy organism. And we, made in his image, 
affirm constitutionally some of the divine finalities after 
him. Thus any rational principle is both universal and 
eternal. Two and two make four, precisely four, here, now, 
anywhere, forever. Mr. Mill’s world where two and two 
may make five is not a possibility in sane supposition. 
Or, as one has cleverly said, “If there is a world where 
two and two make five, the inhabitants do not mean by 
two what we mean by two, or they do not mean by five 
what we mean by five.”’ 

Unyielding we should also be concerning the child’s 
relation to reality. Probably to many it will seem to be 
overweening, but I hold that he has knowledge of a real 
apple just as certainly as he has knowledge that two 
and two make four. Impressively we are told that 
the child’s apple is a mere phenomenal apple, and the 
reality is hiding in behind like a tumid sprite. But this 
sprite, this lurking ‘‘thing in itself,” we do not need. It 
explains nothing. It is a dreamer’s luxury. And it 
cannot itself be consistently explained. And so it be- 
comes a perplexity and a growing burden in philosophy. 
Why not, then, in the name of sensible economy, away 
with it? Inasmuch as, sooner or later, we must regard 
the phenomenon as objective, as a point beyond us 
where the work is done, let us fix the reality at that point 
and in that point. Let us say that the very core of the 
thing comes out in its attributes. Let us allow no idler 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 147 


in behind the action. In other words, I hold that the 
activity of a thing is never to be separated from the 
thing itself. Every phenomenon 1s a reality—manzfested. 
The child’s apple is the real apple. 

Constantly we are reminded that our senses are im- 
perfect, and therefore our seizure of an object must, be 
imperfect. Certainly this is a fact, but it does not 
weaken our contention. The claim is that we know 
reality and not that we know all reality. When a blind 
man, for instance, touches a hot piece of iron, he does 
not get all the reality, but he does most surely get 
some of it. Even in the case of the child, it is not nec- 
essary to affirm that he knows an apple totally. The 
entire apple-reality may greatly overpoise what the apple 
is to him. Nevertheless what the apple is to him is 
reality and not fantasy. Nor does the further fact that 
there is a subjective function, that the child adds to the 
external object, that he “‘treats”’ the apple, weaken our 
contention. The apple is made on purpose to be so 
treated, it is a part of a system of reality; and, out of the 
system, unrelated to the subjective side of the system, it 
has no significance whatever. Alone, it would be as 
meaningless as one blade of a pair of shears. 

The question as to the method of connection between 
the subjective function and the objective item is one 
which has called out some of the most interesting and 
some of the most curious speculation in philosophy. As 
far as | am able to see, there is only one way adequately 
to conceive of the connection, and that is in the terms of 
what I will dare to call a Christian monism, such as is 
suggested by Saint Paul when he says, “For in Him we 
live, and move, and have our being.” If we can first 
avoid all pantheism, by affirming both the personality of 
God and the personality of man, and then avoid all 
deism, by affirming the divine immanence, looking at all 


148 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


objective things as mere ‘‘causal points’’ where God is 
and where God works in relation to mind, we can obtain 
one system in which all the forces and connections are 
by and in God himself. The only serious objection to 
this view is a practical one. Our average man, whom we 
aim to help, constantly “thinks in pictures,’ and it is 
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make the mo- 
nistic view lend itself wholesomely to that superficial 
style of thinking. ‘‘What! do you mean to tell me that 
these dangerous things and these obnoxious thingsand 
these comical things are all activities of the living God?” 

Personal Belief. The realm of reality is vaster than 
the range of coercive objects, and the realm of truth 
comprises many rational realities which cannot be dem- 
onstrated. As one has said, ‘God thinks beyond geom- 
etry and wills existence beyond our cornfields.” It is 
even doubtful to me whether in our final, eternal life all 
that is true or real to God will be coercive tous. In any 
case, there can be no question as to our condition now. 
In this life there are many things, necessary to our highest 
good, which must be seized by belief if they are seized 
at all. 

The main peculiarity of belief, as contrasted with 
knowledge, is that it always involves personal decision. 
Some of the higher forms of knowledge are personal to 
the extent that they are interlaced with self-consciousness, 
but they are never direct resultants of self-decision. 
Indeed, the worth of knowledge lies largely in the fact 
that it comes by coercion. You cannot, whatever may 
be your character, stand out against a demonstrable 
truth. If you try to resist the multiplication table you 
will be given shelter in an asylum. Belief, on the con- 
trary, is very largely a personal creation. Whether you 
will have any belief or not depends, in the last issue, upon 
yourself, upon how much you care for your ideals, upon 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 149 


how much you are willing to venture in the name of a 
finer manhood. And so in belief there is a daring, a 
militant spirit, a resolute purpose to fling one’s whole 
being beyond the dusty commonplace of the surface ex- 
perience. As James Russell Lowell says: 


““ Experience is a dumb, dead thing, 
The victory is in believing.” 


It is, therefore, belief and not knowledge which indi- 
cates a man’s personal character—yes, and helps to form 
his personal character as well. Consequently, in a man’s 
development, in his movement toward perfect manhood, 
belief is of the greater concern. The most momentous 
thing (at least in this period of probation) is not one’s 
hold upon axiomatic truth and coercive reality, but one’s 
bearing toward his ideal. Not truth in the mind; but, 
as Lessing said, the love of truth, truth in the heart, 
what a man is ready to do or to suffer in behalf of truth— 
it is this personal attitude which is the one extremely 
significant matter. Even if a belief at last turns out to 
be untrue, in part or altogether, it may not be an entire 
waste, provided it expresses the longing and striving of a 
person after a lofty life. 

At this turn of our discussion, however, we need to be 
most discriminating. Belief is never an arbitrary vagary. 
Belief is never at all like presumption. It does not even 
look like presumption. In presumption a man is willful, 
egotistic, self-sufficient. ‘‘He is not loath to fool with 
facts.’’ Presumption is enormously selfish, wanting 
things for self at any cost. “ Even in prayer, it is only his 
crop which must catch the miracle.’”’ In belief, veritable 
belief, on the contrary, a man is a humble and reverent 
servant of all reality. Toward men he may be as com- 
manding as Martin Luther, but toward a fact he is as 
docile as a child. He says, “If that is so, then I will 


150 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


yield my point.” Often, indeed, belief is but knowledge 
idealized. It is thus in friendship and in patriotism. 
And even in religion, belief (now called faith) begins in 
real self-knowledge and then springs toward the sky to 
live an ampler life. 

With all this firmly said and iterated, still we should 
never lose sight of the limitation to which all belief is 
necessarily subject. For the very reason that belief is so 
largely a matter of self-decision, it lacks that power of 
swift and universal conquest which knowledge has. 
With any rational chance, my knowledge can gain do- 
minion anywhere, for its truth can be exactly demon- 
strated. But belief cannot make use of demonstration. 
The best it can furnish is a probable argument of persua- 
sive appeal; and before such an argument men are 
always likely to hesitate. “Ah!” they say, “who knows 
how much caprice may be snugly concealed in this belief?”’ 
That is, my belief must, among men, pay the tribute of 
my personal freedom. I cannot be free without some 
expense. I cannot be free and yet expect men to treat 
me as if I were a thoroughly reliable automaton. Nor 
does the individual personal character afford an unfailing 
proof of the verity of a man’s belief. Who, taking only 
one case, would be convinced by Count Tolstoy’s nobility 
of character, of the truth of any one belief in his most 
astonishing collection? ‘But think of his long self- 
sacrifice.’ Certainly, but his self-sacrifice shows his 
sincerity, that is all. Almost every kind of error beneath 
the sun has been sincerely held. And sometimes, for 
reasons which can be discovered, a most erratic and a 
most dangerous religious leader has the most noble 
character in an abnormal situation. But, remember, we 
are now considering the character of the isolated person. 
Once add, in a large enough measure, the element of 
social confirmation, and the evidential import is entirely 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH I51 


changed. When we find a definite and adequate moral 
character, typically evinced in an abiding community, 
we possess, in such a character, forcible evidence for the 
truth of the belief which lies fundamental in the life of 
that community. But even this evidence, however forci- 
ble, does not amount to a compelling demonstration. 


THE RATIONALE OF CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY 


Having made this preliminary study of knowledge and 
belief, we are prepared to consider the philosophy of 
Christian certainty. We will deal with its intention, its 
method, and its sufficiency. 

The Intention. The Christian intention is not, as many 
seem to think, to make provision for knowledge. Every- 
one, though, will surely understand that the term knowl- 
edge is used here not in the loose manner of popular 
speech, but in the narrow sense of our own previous dis- 
cussion. Precisely speaking, we know a truth, or a 
reality, only when it carries us simply as rational beings 
beyond all possibility of sane dispute. As a rationalist 
once stated the point, we know a thing when it is “so 
clear and distinct that it cannot be doubted.” And he 
means when it cannot be doubted by any rational mind. 
In this narrow, philosophical use of the term, Christian 
truths and facts are not and cannot be known by men. 
Christianity is not an exact science, aiming to force assent 
by an irrefragable mathematical process. There is not 
one Christian doctrine, not one Christian event, not one 
Christian reality, securely beyond the possibility of some 
man’s personal rejection. Not only so, but this possi- 
bility of personal rejection is the key to the entire worth 
of the Christian religion. Were men coerced into a 
knowledge of God and Christ and all the mighty matters 
of redemption, personality would be overwhelmed and 
there could be no personal repentance, no personal faith, 


152 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


no personal peace, no personal loyalty—no personal 
service. No, no, the Christian intention is not to make 
provision for knowledge, not in any fashion to compel 
the mind—not even to satisfy the mind as an isolated 
fragment, as a mere instrument of rationality. The 
Christian plan is to meet the whole man with his mind, 
his personality, and his conscience. More closely yet, 
the Christian intention is to take a moral person who 
dares, under the stress of his moral needs, and with his 
ideal beckoning in the distance, to believe in Jesus Christ 
and his atonement for sin—to take, I say, this venturing 
Christian and satisfy him—make him certain, in every 
crevice of his manhood, that whatever of person or event 
or doctrine is vitally coherent with his experience is 
grounded in reality or vibrant with truth. 

The Method. In the process of Christian certainty 
there are four important features, as follows: 1. The fea- 
ture of self-knowledge. This is the basal start. In self- 
grasp a man obtains the necessary fixed point; and in 
full self-consciousness he obtains the realization of his 
Christian experience. Often this self-knowledge is called 
knowledge, and sometimes it is called personal belief; 
but, in a searching discussion, neither name is entirely 
satisfactory. The knowledge is of self, and differs from 
ordinary knowledge in two respects: first, in that it is 
possible only in the high, self-conscious mood ; and, second, 
in that it cannot be transferred by means of demon- 
stration. Your Christian experience may be very rich 
and very profound, but you cannot, to another man, 
make it resistlessly cogent that you have such an ex- 
perience. The reality is not an object for universal 
knowledge, but merely an object of self-knowledge. And, 
again, self-knowledge also differs from personal belief; 
for, inasmuch as the knowledge of self is a result of coer- 
cion and not a result of self-decision, it is not fully 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 153 


personal. It pertains to the personal process, but it does 
not reach to the end of that process. 2. The feature of 
moral concern. The certainty is ethical through and 
through. And here I mean much more than that the 
steps leading up to a Christian experience are thoroughly 
moral. I mean this: A central reason why the Christian 
man is sure of this or that is its fitness with his moral 
ideal. No Christian, for example, accepts the fact of the 
Incarnation on bare rational grounds. As an isolated 
event in history, | doubt whether anyone could, in these 
scientific days, believe that God had actually become 
man. It isso out of range with rational expectation! It 
is so in violence with the practical modern temper! How 
easy, how supremely sane, it is for the Zeztgezst, in all his 
robust health, to fling the miracle aside as ‘“‘one of those 
infantile myths”! But to a man with a profound 
Christian experience the Incarnation is not an isolated 
event in history. Itisa related event in moral history. 
It is “an ethical deed of God.”’ It is a necessary part of 
a far-reaching moral plan to save man. The miracle, 
stupendous as it is, is, for the Christian believer, lifted 
into complete rationality by means of its ethical signifi- 
cance. In truth, not only is he able to accept the entire 
doctrine of the Incarnation, but also he craves it as a 
starving man craves bread. 3. The feature of personal 
belief. With all this start in self-knowledge and all this 
influence of the moral ideal, there is still a personal ven- 
ture, an actual self-decision involved in all Christian 
certainty\, The process (up to this point) by which the 
eeattg Ns obtained is this: The man knows himself; 
gathers the deep richness of his Christian experience into 
self-conscious realization; instantly perceives that a cer- 
tain fact or doctrine is in living conjunction with his 
inner experience (as a man once said, ‘“‘I myself need the 
virgin birth almost as much as I needed pardon’’); as 


154 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


instantly perceives that this fact or doctrine fits into his 
moral ideal; and then makes the venture, yields his whole 
being in personal belief. This venture is not rationalistic, 
but it is rational; for surely a man has the right to take 
some risk to satisfy the demands of his personal and 
moral life. 4. The feature of social confirmation. Rob- 
ert Browning once wrote to a friend, “I want you to give 
my conviction a clinch.” The two words, conviction 
and clinch, suggest the philosophy of certainty in belief. 
First there is a personal element, the person himself gets 
a conviction; then there is a social element, the personal 
conviction is clinched, or confirmed, by other men. 
You believe in your country, in her history, in her con- 
stitution, in her institutions, in her people, in her signifi- 
cance among the nations. Your belief amounts to such 
a conviction that you could gladly die to express it; and 
yet every other patriot makes you a little more certain 
that your country is worth dying for. 

In the Christian faith this principle of social confirma- 
tion has its finest and largest application. A Christian 
is not a hermit. He is not alone either in his experience 
or in the expression of his experience. He has a com- 
munity, he lives in a testing and supplementing and con- 
firming community. In every crisis of his life, in every 
new turn of public opinion, in every phase of self-knowl- 
edge, in every look at his moral ideal, before and during 
and after every self-decision, he is bounded by a brotherhood. 
And this brotherhood is singularly adapted to the needs 
of the Christian man. It is made up of moral persons, 
all trying to complete their life in truth and reality; all 
these moral persons have had the initial moral and 
Christian experiences; all have now the same profound 
relation to Jesus Christ and his death for their salvation; 
and still all these redeemed moral persons come together 
with countless differences in individuality, in mental 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 155 


training, in position and occupation, in influence over 
men, and in present religious attainment. Thus, this 
brotherhod has mighty resources in social service and con- 
firmation. It is too much to say that this confirmation 
is coercive, turning conviction into knowledge; but it is 
not too much to say that it gives to personal assurance 
such ratification that the Christian consciousness is full 
of certainty. 

The Sufficiency. As the personal process is gathered 
up and continued by the moral process, so the moral 
process itself is gathered up and continued and completed 
by the Christian process. Thus the Christian process is 
one of synthesis and culmination. It is from the stand- 
point of this synthetic, culminating process that Christian 
certainty has sufficiency. It makes sufficient contribu- 
tion to that Christian process. The certainty is, in the 
first place, sufficient for the ongoing of the process. At 
any point, a man can have confidence enough to move on. 
Whatever of fact or doctrine he needs for moral progress, 
he can be sure about. And so, inertia is never a necessity 
in the life of the moral person. Right here I must take 
exception to a view often implied, and sometimes de- 
liberately taught, namely, that one can begin the Chris- 
tian life, or go on to the richer kinds of religious expe- 
Tience, by making experiment under doubt. As though a 
man should say to himself, ‘‘I am not at all sure about 
this thing, but it’s worth trying; and if nothing comes of 
it I will be as weli off as I was before.” In a recent 
book this view of Christianity, taken by hazard, is even 
given apologetic significance: “I conclude, therefore, that 
the true source of religious confidence is not primarily the 
objective Christian evidences, but the Christian expe- 
Tience obtained through a voluntary trust in the gospel 
when doubt is possible, or, what is substantially the same 
thing, by acting in a state of some uncertainty as if 


156 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


the religion were known to be true. In other words, 
Christianity is offered to the human race, not as a mere 
contribution to religious knowledge, but chiefly as a body 
of directions for a moral crisis, and is therefore to be used 
like everything else of the same class, that is, it is to be 
proved by making trial of it.” These words touch reality 
in several places, but, taken together, they are extremely 
misleading. Not one genuine movement toward Chris- 
tianity, or within the Christian life, can be made “by 
acting in a state of some uncertainty as if the religion 
were known to be true.’”’ To act in such a way is to 
pretend, and such pretension would violate the ideal of 
any moral loyalist. It is precisely this sort of teaching 
which lends support to the superficial evangelist, and 
fills our churches with powerless imitations of the Chris- 
tian experience. Think of a man trying to become a 
Christian, or trying to reach a higher plane of Christian 
life, by means of a false personal attitude, and an attitude 
which any true moralist would despise! “But did you 
yourself not insist upon taking some risk, upon personal 
venture?” Yes, but the personal venture which I insist 
upon originates in regard for reality and is in the name 
of the moral ideal and not against it. The personal ven- 
ture which I insist upon is not a dubious experiment— 
not an arbitrary and desperate leap at a passing possi- 
bility. A Christian is not like—a real Christian is not 
like a restless and reckless adventurer, who gambles with 
opportunity, who sails for an unknown shore in a spirit 
of hazard, thinking, ‘‘ There may be gold there!” Rather 
is the real Christian like an immigrant who has shown 
both confidence and courage. In the land where he was 
born he experienced poverty and tyranny. He learned 
of another country where there was work and liberty 
and appreciation of simple manhood. He made the 
yenture, crossed the sea, built a new home, and obtained 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 157 


a new citizenship. And now, in his ample life and per- 
petual intercourse with his neighbors, he is more and 
more certain that in his confident venture he has made 
no mistake. 

The certainty is, in the second place, sufficient for the 
completion cf the process. The Christian life, as you will 
readily remember, is to eventuate in a social organism, in 
a racial brotherhood. In this organism neither the sig- 
nificance of the moral person nor the significance of the 
entangled community is to be lost. The oneman stands 
out as personally emphatic as though there were no other 
man in existence; and yet the community has a peculiar 
and an everlasting importance as a community. With 
this plan for a double outcome in mind, notice the nicety 
with which the Christian certainty makes contribution to 
the outcome. On the one side, the man, as an individual, 
moral, responsible person, is exalted by his free venture 
under his ideal. His certainty has come to him by a 
method most intensely personal. Not for an instant has 
his own independence, his own volitional freedom, been 
overwhelmed. As he stands there now, satisfied in every 
fiber of his manhood, he is more of a person, less of an 
automaton, than ever before. His personal mood has 
more vitality, more endurance; he can stay longer in self- 
consciousness. But, on the other hand, this satisfied 
man has a larger and more wonderful interlacing with his 
brethren, for his certainty has come to full bloom only in 
a social soil, and his certainty is complete only in their 
organic confidence. He is sure with the strength of their 
total satisfaction. His self-consciousness is filled by the 
entire community-assurance of truth and fact. Thus, 
even the final mental life of the Christian man is to be a 
life in fellowship. Not one opinion will he have which is 
not, while fully his own, a part of the Christian consensus 
of opinion. An ultimate Christian doctrine, therefore, 


158 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


is more than a personal belief—it is the belief of the social 
organism of redeemed moral persons. It satisfies, not 
the mind in isolation, but the whole man; not one man 
alone, but a vast number of men; not merely a vast num- 
ber of men, but all these men, with individual difference, 
and personal likeness, and one common relation to Jesus 
Christ and his death for their sins, coming together in a 
perfect reciprocity of thought and feeling and service. 
Herein lies the philosophy of the stability of the Chris- 
tian faith. 


ESSENTIAL POINTS IN DEFINITION 
Knowledge. 


When a man is made certain by coercion of any truth or reality, 
such certainty is knowledge. An unfailing mark of knowledge 
is its capability of irresistible and universal transfer from mind 
to mind. 

Belief. 

When a man makes a venture under an ideal of any kind his 
confidence in the truth or reality of the object of his venture is 
personal belief. Unlike knowledge, belief is incapable of any 
irresistible transfer from mind to mind. 

Christian Certainty. 

This is a peculiar sort of belief. It is a personal belief, socially 
reinforced, under a moral ideal. A full definition may be given 
thus: Christian certainty is that personal, moral assurance which 
a Christian man, in organic relation with the Christian brother- 
hood, more and more profoundly has, first and most vitally of 
the reality of his spiritual life in Christ, and then of the reality 
or truth of the objects and events and doctrines bound up with 
that life in Christ. 





Weil denn Eure Kaiserliche Majestat und Eure Gnaden eine schlichte 
Antwort begehren, so will ich eine Antwort ohne Horner und Zahne 
geben diesermassen: Es sei denn, dass ich durch Zeugnisse der Schrift 
oder durch helle Griinde tiberwunden werde—denn ich glaube weder 
dem Papst, noch den Konzilien allein, dieweil am Tag liegt, dass 
sie Ofters geirrt und sich selbst widersprochen haben—-so bin ich tiber- 
wunden durch die von mir angeftihrten heiligen Schriften und mein 
Gewissen ist gefangen in Gottes Wort; widerrufen kann ich nichts 
und will ich nichts, dieweil wider das Gewissen zu handeln unsicher 
und gefahrlich ist—Martin Luther, Sein Leben und Seine Schriften, 
Julius Kostlin, i, 452. 


You easily observe, I therein build on no authority, ancient or 
modern, but the Scripture. If this supports any doctrine, it will 
stand; if not, the sooner it falls the better.— John Wesley, from a letter 
dated February 5, 1756. 


When it comes to be a question of psychological analysis, no doubt the 
distinction of subjective and objective is a difficult thing. Still, we can 
as arule tell in a rough and rude way what is our own and what we owe 
to others. And if ever there was a case in which there was clearness 
of conviction on this head it was in the case of the prophets and 
apostles. They knew perfectly well, and they make the distinction 
perfectly clear, when they are speaking their own thoughts, and when 
they are speaking thoughts and delivering a message which is not their 
own.—W. Sanday, from a sermon preached before the University of 
Oxford, October 21, 1894. 


We are Christians and therefore occupy a position with regard to 
Holy Scripture quite different from that which we take toward the 
Homeric poems, the Nibelungen, or the treasures of the library of 
Asurbanipal. Holy Scripture being the book of the records of our 
religion, our relation thereto is not merely scientific, but also in the 
highest degree one of moral responsibility. We will not deny the 
human element with which it is affected, but will not with Hamitic 
laughter discover the nakedness of Noah. We will not with vandalic 
delight destroy that which is holy. We will nct undermine the 
foundations of Christianity for the sake of playing into the hands of 
Brahmosamajic, that is, of Brahmanic or Buddhistic, rationalism. 
For the notes that are struck in German lecture halls and books are 
at last reéchoed from distant Asia, and make vain the efforts of our 
missionaries. We will not give up what is untenable without re- 
placing it, wherever possible, by that which is tenable. We will 
interpret Genesis as theologians, and, indeed, as Christian theologians, 
that is, as believers in Jesus Christ, who is the end of all the ways 
and words of God.—Franz Delitzsch, from the Introduction to his New 
Commentary on Genesis. 


XII. THE CHRISTIAN BOOK 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE 


OvuTSIDE the range of conservative theology there are 
three pronounced attitudes toward the miracles of the 
Bible: 

1. The attitude where all miracle is regarded as im- 
possible. The whole case is settled beyond recall by an 
a priori assumption. The criticism of Hume by Professor 
Huxley is sometimes quoted to show that Huxley did 
not deny the possibility of miracle, but merely demanded 
adequate evidence. Such, however, was not his position. 
What he did not deny was that any given thing might 
exist, or any unusual event might take place; he only 
asked for sufficient evidence; but had you furnished the 
sufficient evidence, he would have said that the thing or 
event proven was not miraculous, but purely natural, 
only formerly not understood. 

Within the province of biblical criticism, this first 
attitude toward the Scripture miracle is represented by 
Professor Wellhausen, who, in his crude, frank rational- 
ism, often reminds us of Paulus. Here is a passage taken 
from the Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah: “The 
Hebrews, compelled to abandon the direct eastern road 
(Exod. 13. 17, 18) turned toward the southwest and 
encamped at last on the Egyptian shore of the northern 
arm of the Red Sea, where they were overtaken by 
Pharaoh’s army. The situation was a critical one; but 
a high wind during the night left the shallow sea so low 
that it became possible to ford it. Moses eagerly accepted 
the suggestion, and made the venture with success. The 
Egyptians, rushing after, came up with them on the 


162 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


further shore, and a struggle ensued. But the assailants 
fought at a disadvantage, the ground being ill-suited for 
their chariots and horsemen; they fell into confusion and 
attempted to retreat. Meanwhile the wind had changed ; 
the waters returned, and the pursuers were annihi- 
lated.”’ 

2. The attitude where the miracle is obnoxious to the 
person. Some of the Ritschlians belong to the first class, 
but some of them do not hold that a miracle is impossible; 
and their extreme hesitation can be fairly explained, I 
think, by saying that to them the miracle is obnoxious. 
Of course, we shall be required, sooner or later, to explain 
our explanation; for some one is sure to ask: “ Why is 
the miracle obnoxious to them?” Even in answering 
this question, though, I am not willing to call these men, 
as some have called them, “rationalists in disguise.” 
Rather would my own answer be this: Like a large number 
of other thinkers who are alert and sensitive to modern 
tendency, they are dominated by the scientific conception 
of natural law, and they feel that a miracle is incongruous, 
out of keeping with the quiet, steady majesty of the 
universal order, an event unlike God, an event which can 
be tolerated only by an immature mind—in short, miracle 
means to them lawlessness, and so it is an offense to their 
scientific habit of mind. 

3. The attitude where the miracle is considered bur- 
densome in Christian apology. There are men who have 
not themselves given up the miracles of the Bible at all; 
but they are looking for something “strategic in apolo- 
getics.”” At the front as teachers or writers or preachers, 
they feel the reality and sorrow of the fact that faith 
after faith is yielding, that man after man is going down 
into hopeless skepticism. They thus come to a full 
realization of the entire strain upon thoughtful men in 
this, the most critical period in Christian history. And 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 163 


they try to relieve this strain; they try to see how 
much they can give up, and yet save the essential content 
of the Christian religion. As one writer stated it, in an 
editorial on ‘‘The Recession of Miracle,”’ ‘‘ We still hold 
to the miracle, but we are looking for our lines of retreat.”’ 
Once filled with this apologetic purpose, it is not strange 
that the Christian miracle seems burdensome to these 
men. And once burdensome it is not strange that the 
miracle is rejected outright or refined away. 

The first of these three attitudes does not merit the 
serious consideration of any real Christian theist; for if 
there is an infinite personal God the question of miracle 
cannot be one of inherent possibility, but must be merely 
a question of method, or divine intention. The second 
attitude results from a failure to appreciate the ethical 
dignity of a Christian miracle. It is not incongruous for 
God to break the universal order, if such a rupture can 
be made to contribute to righteousness. There is majesty 
in the natural law, but there is still greater majesty in the 
moral law. As Cardinal Newman once said, “Miracles, 
though they contravene the physical laws of the universe, 
tend to the due fulfillment of its moral laws.” The third 
attitude is a most serious misapprehension from several 
points of view: First, it is a misapprehension of the 
present situation. The stress of the situation is not 
caused by science, but by a superficial ethical life, which 
has no force sufficiently to ethicalizethe lordly demands 
of science. Given a profoundly moral situation, and the 
Christian miracle would not be burdensome in the least. 
Science has not proven anything which tends in any 
way to weaken man’s moral openness toward the literal 
resurrection of our Lord’s body. Again, there is a mis- 
apprehension of man’s nature. A man isa moral person, 
and he wants a great personal task. Arrange your 
accommodations, plan out your compromises, exhibit 


164 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


your mediating theologies, and at last they will be rejected 
by men. The very hope of the Christian faith, in relation 
to conquest, is the enormous demand it makes upon per- 
sonality. Again, and last, there is a misapprehension of 
the Christian religion itself. The miraculous cannot be 
taken out of Christianity, for the simple reason that it is 
fundamental in the Christian structure. Christianity is 
an organized miracle. Suppose you could get rid of the 
smaller miracles, you would still have to deal with the 
Incarnation and the Resurrection. And if you tried to 
get on without these, there would be remaining the pecul- 
iar person of Jesus Christ, and he is the most stupendous 
Miracle of all, ‘“‘the Grand Miracle of Christianity about 
which all the others play as scintillations only of the 
central fire.”’ 

The Christian Conception of the Supernatural. In our 
discussions of morality and of religion we treated the 
supernatural superficially, from the standpoint of man’s 
nature and development. To man, in his development, 
that is supernatural which belongs to the infinite mystery 
beyond nature, that is, beyond the realm of ordinary 
individual seizure. In the Christian conception there is 
no contradiction of this purely anthropological view; but 
there is a deeper interpretation of the facts. To obtain 
this deeper interpretation, the standpoint is changed 
from man to God. Both the natural and the super- 
natural now have significance only as expressions of the 
divine will. In one sense, the old dualism disappears, 
for there is but one universe, of which God is creator, 
upholder, and ruler. At the basis of things, there is 
one organism, working out one sublime intention. “The 
one God shines in a star and whispers in a conscience.” 
All this can be readily and eagerly admitted. And even 
more can be admitted. Had sin never come into the 
world, the divine bearing in the universe, and toward 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 165 


men, would be ever one, and that one bearing normal, 
natural. But sin has come into the world, and that 
awful event changes everything. God’s relations with 
us, his plans for us, all are no longer entirely normal. 
With sin once a reality, there comes into God’s method 
a kind of dualism. There are now two divine bearings, 
one toward the lower individual, and one toward the 
higher moral person. Thus, God makes, in a perfect 
manner, precisely the same distinction that man (as we 
found) makes in an imperfect manner. These two 
bearings of God may properly be called the natural and 
the supernatural. Whatever comes by the ordinary 
volitions of God, whatever expresses the divine habit, 
is natural; and whatever comes by the extraordinary 
volitions of God is supernatural. The Christian super- 
natural, therefore, is not a bare expression of the purpose 
of God, but is an expression of his unusual volitions in 
catrying out his purpose. This point is of extreme im- 
portance. Sometimes the saint so easily finds God every- 
where, so clearly discovers the larger intention of God 
even in the most common objects and events, that he is 
quite inclined to obliterate the distinction between the 
natural and the supernatural, and to seek a philosophy 
which recognizes such obliteration. But the moment 
such obliteration is lifted into a philosophy of life, not 
only is the philosophy practically unwholesome in rela- 
tion to the religious experience, but also it fails to make 
adequate provision for the costly feature of divine self- 
sacrifice in redemption. If the Incarnation was normal, 
if there was behind it only an ordinary volition, that 
grants an event as philosophically inexpensive as the 
making of a continent. But if the Incarnation was 
beyond the normal unfolding of God’s relation to man, 
if there was behind it an extraordinary volition, that 
grants an event which can be charged with a sacrifice 


166 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ethically and intrinsically costly to God. It is because 
of this moral and redemptional bias that we must regard 
the supernatural as much more than a mere wonder, as 
much more than that which is temporarily extraordinary 
to man. Forever will it be extraordinary to man, for it 
is extraordinary to God himself. ‘‘Jt is extraordinary at 
both ends.”’ 

The Christian Miracle. It remains to place the Chris- 
tian miracle. It is not only supernatural, but also a 
peculiar kind, we might say a peculiar degree of the super- 
natural. When God so wills beyond his habit that his 
volition is contrary to his habit; when the ordinary vo- 
lition is not only outclassed but actually held in abeyance; 
when the habit must yield to make way for the extraor- 
dinary volition—then the result is a miracle. Thus, a 
miracle is intrinsically, and may be ethically, the most 
expensive action possible to the Infinite God. The more 
important features of my entire view can be gathered 
up as follows: The supernatural is to be considered only 
from an ethical standpoint, if we are to understand its 
meaning in the Christian system. For moral ends, a 
man’s conscience is extraordinarily vitalized and pro- 
tected—this is the first degree of the supernatural. For 
further moral ends, for definite Christian experience, a 
believing person is converted and assured and sanctified 
—this is more extraordinary, is a higher degree of the 
supernatural. Up to this point the action is beyond the 
divine habit, but in no instance a contravention of that 
habit. Now we come to the miracle, and we will first 
take one which is as meager ethically as a Christian 
miracle can be. To make his personal influence more 
immediately efficient, and thus prepare the way for his 
redemptional message and work, our Lord turns water 
into wine. This is not only supernatural, but also con- 
traventional—it is actually against the divine habit to 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 167 


make wine in that manner. To urge, as so many timid 
apologists do, that the miracle was done under a “higher 
law”’ does not touch the reality of the miracle at all, for 
this “higher law’”’ is nothing whatsoever but a contra- 
vening action for higher ends. Now we can sweep on to 
the Incarnation. To render possible the moral salvation 
of mankind, the only Son of God actually becomes man. 
This is beyond the divine habit and against the divine 
habit, but it is more than all that—it is a continued con- 
travention, a breaking forever of the normal life of the 
Godhead, an everlasting miracle. The whole ethical in- 
tensity of Christianity can be expressed in a sentence: 
The redemption of man has cost God a miraculous sac- 
rifice which is never, never to end. 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE 


The possibility of the authority of the Bible lies in the 
fact that a need for an objective standard is created by 
the process under which the Christian experience is 
reached and enlarged and completed. This need is an 
important feature of the development of the moral per- 
son himself. The nature of biblical authority, therefore, 
is not arbitrary but inherent, not artificial but intrinsic 
The Bible, in a word, is in authority because it is a moral 
dynamic. 

The Dynamic Element in the Obtatnment. When we 
examine the steps by which we have obtained the Bible 
we find a dynamic element in every step. 

First step: Our Lord himself started the Christian 
community, but he did not do this in any arbitrary, 
artificial way. He made himself morally necessary to a 
number of men who were open to his spiritual influence. 
His relation to his disciples was that of a moral dynamic, 
constantly enlarged, until it mastered their total man- 
hood. In this spiritual manner the authority of Christ 


168 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


became at last for the Christian community, exactly and 
in all matters, the authority of God. 

Second step: After the death of our Lord a peculiar 
authority fell to the apostles. In a sense they were, in 
the Christian community, to take the place of Christ. 
They were regents in authority. They were chosen and 
inspired, not mainly to organize the church, but to in- 
terpret and apply the message of redemption from the 
standpoint of a finished work, that is, from the stand- 
point of our Lord’s death. It is an evident mistake to 
teach that the entirety of Christian doctrine may be 
seen in the blessed words of our Saviour. Before his 
death only germs, hints of the full doctrine, could be 
wisely revealed. The Sermon on the Mount should 
always be supplemented with the deed of atonement and 
its interpretation by the apostles. But their interpre- 
tation, all their teaching, was dynamic. The ultimate 
reason why it took hold of a Christian man was that it 
vitally entered into, and fitted into, all the Christian 
experience the man had. Of course, there was often 
shown a formal authority ; but without the inner dynamic 
little power would formal authority have had in any time 
of test. 

Last step: It was the death of the apostles which made 
the Bible necessary to the Christian community. In the 
profoundest sense the apostolic office was not continued. 
Since the close of the apostolic interpretation not one, 
not even the smallest item, has been added to the biblical 
organism. The apostles completed once for all the body 
of fundamental Christian truth; and, through all the 
complications and upheavals of the coming centuries, 
this body of truth was to take their place. Notice, for a 
moment, the profound method which is suggested here. 
Christianity is to triumph by reaching and satisfying and 
mastering the free moral person. But with such extreme 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 169 


recognition of personal freedom there needs to be some 
objective check—no coercion, but a check—or there will 
appear vagaries as individual and countless as the grains 
of sand. The needed check is provided in precisely the 
suitable strength. The moral person is to live under the 
check of a brotherhood, and the brotherhood is to live 
under the check of the inspired Word of God. The full- 
ness and efficiency of the Christian life depend upon the 
perfect interplay of these three features, the personal, 
the social, and the biblical. Now the obtainment. The 
Bible was not obtained in any arbitrary manner. The 
criterion of canonicity was essentially spiritual. It is true 
that there was, in considering any given writing, the 
question of historical connection; but the historical 
question was really a means to an end. What the 
Christian church was after all the time was to discover 
and sanction those writings which to the Christian con- 
sciousness revealed the person of Christ and the doctrines 
and facts of redemption. Had any writing whatsoever 
antagonized Christian experience, had any book failed to 
win the inner Christian amen, such a book would have 
been rejected. Therefore we can affirm that every step 
in the obtainment of the Bible was not arbitrary but 
dynamic. 

The Dynamic Stages in the Authority. A thorough 
treatment at this point would take us over the ground 
already covered in our discussion of the Christian religion 
in its relation to the moral person. We will, therefore, 
barely outline the case. In reaching full authority for 
the Christian man and the Christian community, the 
Bible passes through three stages; and just as each step 
in the obtainment of the Bible was essentially dynamic, 
so here each stage in the process of influence is dynamic. 
These stages are, we say, three in number: 1. The stage of 
moral experience. The Bible, by its revelation of God and 


170 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Christ, by all its tremendous ethical insistence, by its 
vista of final things beyond the grave, is precisely adapted 
to effect man’s conscience. “Jt burns a man.” No 
moral person can read the Bible and hide away from 
moral requirement. There is no other instrument which 
lends such ethical opportunity to the Holy Spirit. To 
any moral person, at whatever place he may be in moral 
development, the Bible is absolute authority as to his 
immediate moral life. And it is to him thus absolute in 
authority, not because some man, or some church, has 
declared it to be so, not for any artificial reason, but 
simply because it creates a moral urgency, because it 
urges the man along the very course he was planned to 
take. It is always to be granted that the moral influence 
of the Bible can be augmented by true men, and especially 
by a true church; but what is done by the men, or by the 
church, is to furnish an opportunity for the normal 
working of the influence of the Bible. In any situation 
the greatest moral thing which can be done is to give the 
Bible a fair chance at men. 2. The stage of Christian 
experience. I am now thinking of the isolated fact of 
Christian experience. Why is the Bible authority to the 
one man who has been converted? The answer is three- 
fold: First, the Bible is profoundly involved in the whole 
process by which the man has come to moral peace; 
second, the Bible is the supreme means by which the 
Christian experience is now nourished; and, third, the 
Bible is the expression, the objective capture, of man’s 
entire subjective life. This last point needs, perhaps, a 
word of amplification. Our inner world is subtle and 
flashing; our finest moods are often as evasive as the 
delicate perfume of a wild flower; after they are gone, we 
can hardly believe that we had them at all. But when 
we read the Bible we are certain that we had such moods, 
for there they all are, caught in God’s Word as minutely 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 171 


as a mirror catches the lines of a face. Thus, the Bible 
serves not only to urge the moral nature, not only to 
connect the Christian experience with all our moral 
development, not only to nourish that experience with 
rich facts and doctrines, but also as a sort of Christian 
memory, to hold, and keep real to us, all that has taken 
place in our inner life. 3. The stage of Christian ex- 
perience in brotherhood. This is but a social enlarge- 
ment of the second stage. In his new relation to his 
brethren, the Christian man looks at the Bible through 
their combined experience, and its dynamic influence 
upon him is increased by them. If the Bible is dynamic 
in authority to one man with a Christian experience it is 
more comprehensively so to two men bound together in 
Christian fellowship and service. The total philosophy 
of Christian certainty springs in here. A doctrine might 
not carry one man alone; but to two men, in their con- 
joined experience, it might appeal; and to a thousand 
men it might be morally self-evident. Once lift the social 
Christian organism out of formality and secularity, and 
the Bible will take care of itself. But we have not said 
enough. The Christian brotherhood itself is not a thing 
merely of to-day. It has, under the operations of the 
Holy Spirit, a most vital connection with the past. We 
have not only a Christian experience, but also a Christian 
inheritance. Could we bring together all the men, in 
this world and in the other world, who form the one 
Christian kingdom, the one organic brotherhood in Christ 
our Saviour; and could we secure a perfect expression of 
their Christian consciousness in its relation to the Word 
of God, we would find that consciousness to be a de- 
posit of all the Christian experience of all the Christian 
centuries. 

The pith of the matter can be given as follows: The 
Bible is an ultimate authority to men because it appeals to 


172 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


them with spiritual cogency. This is the basal principle. 
This appeal is cogent to the moral person, because it fits 
into and stimulates and enlarges his own moral ideal. 
This appeal is cogent to the Christian man, because the 
Bible, as used by the Holy Spirit, has largely produced 
his Christian experience; and also because the Bible now 
nourishes and expresses that experience. This appeal is 
more widely cogent to the Christian man in actual 
Christian fellowship and service, because he now ap- 
prehends the Bible through the combined experience of 
his brethren. The Bible is ultimate authority to the 
Christian church for several reasons: first, because it has 
come down to the church by a cogent spiritual method; 
second, because it is authority personally to every real 
member of the church; and, third, because it has been 
madea part of the Christian organism. This last point will 
be more clearly seen in another connection. Here I wish 
only to glimpse the idea that the Bible is something more 
to the organic Christian church than it can be to an 
isolated Christian, or even to all separate Christians 
added together. To have the profoundest relation to 
the Bible, Christians must so come together in Christ as 
to live in full communion with him, in full fellowship 
with each other, and in full service for mankind. 

The Extent of Biblical Authority. In the very nature 
of the case, if our dynamic view is the true one, the extent 
of the authority of the Bible is not the same in all situa- 
tions. To a moral seeker the authority is not the 
same as it is to aconverted man. Toa converted man 
with a meager religious experience the authority is not 
the same as it is to a saint. To a saint living in holy 
isolation, like some of the famous anchorets, the authority 
is not the same as it is toa saint giving his whole being 
to the joys and sorrows and activities of the church. To 
a formal church, half breathing under endless ceremonies 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 173 


and ecclesiastical ambitions and worldly conceits and 
compromises, the authority is not the same as it is to a 
church with a present Christ and a penetrating Holy 
Spirit. Not to waste our time in these situations of 
spiritual poverty, let us say at once that to the real 
Christian brotherhood, or to any man in organic relation 
to that brotherhood, the Bible is ultimate authority on 
precisely four things, namely: 1. On Christ. The Bible 
is reliable in its account of our Lord, as to his character, 
as to his teaching, and as to his deeds. The Christian 
consciousness can and does take this reliability for 
granted. 2. On the facts of redemption. The Old Testa- 
ment preparation for Christ, the redemptional integrity 
of its history, the actuality of its prophecies; the miracle 
of the Incarnation; the death and resurrection and ascen- 
sion and session of our Lord—all these redemptional 
facts are given in the Bible in absolute finality for the 
Christian brotherhood. 3. On the doctrines of redemp- 
tion. But we must ever remember that a biblical doc- 
trine is not the scientific doctrine of systematic theology. 
The biblical doctrine is merely a practical statement of 
the significance of a redemptional fact. For example, 
the Bible has much to say about the necessity for an 
atonement, to render possible the forgiveness of sin; but 
the Bible does not try to furnish a scientific theory of the 
atonement. Were we to work out this point completely 
you would see that Christian certainty may, as the 
Christian community develops, reach much further than 
biblical authority reaches; but the two, the authority and 
the certainty, can never be in conflict. The Bible must 
always supply the data for any doctrinal enlargement 
of which the Christian consciousness becomes certain. 
4. The principles of conduct for the daily Christian life. 
The application of these principles is purposely left open; 
but the principles are binding, and they are so plainly 


174 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


taught that one can easily make out of them a practical 
system of Christian ethics. 

In a compact statement of the practical significance 
of our view, we would say this: The scope of biblical au- 
thority exactly coincides with the scope of the biblical purpose; 
and the purpose of the Bible is to furnish in moral cogency 
all the data necessary to understand, to accept, to assimilate, 
and to preach the entire plan under which God redeems 
mankind. Ina word, the Bible is authority on redemp- 
tion. And let us complete the matter by adding—to 
every moral person who is willing to be redeemed. 

As to Science. It follows from what has been said that 
the Bible is not a final authority upon any scientific 
question. The opinions of the author of the book of Job 
on natural history are not, and, in the nature of the case, 
cannot be, binding upon the Christian church. There is, 
however, one clear exception, it seems to me: If a scien- 
tific question, like that of the origin of the race, has a 
real Christian entanglement, is bound up with a funda- 
mental Christian doctrine (in this instance with the doc- 
trine of sin), then the Christian doctrine must be pro- 
tected. Iwill be plainer. Asa man witha self-conscious 
Christian experience, in full and open relation with Chris- 
tian men, I can allow no abiding antagonism between a 
Christian doctrine and a scientific theory. Always I have 
the right to reconsider the case, and I may be able to 
change my interpretation of the doctrine. But if I can- 
not change it, if the antagonism still remains, if one view or 
the other must go down, then for me the scientific theory 
must go down. For the theory, however generally held, 
is nothing but probability, and my experience in Christ is 
absolute self-certainty. For me, as one person, the ex- 
perience is an ultimate, like self-consciousness itself. I 
am, first of all, not a scientist, but, first of all, and last of 
all, a man redeemed by our Lord and living a life of 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 175 


iinspeakable reality in him. A Christian man should ever 
be open to all scientific discussion, but he will not empty 
out the content of his faith any more than he will try to 
stop breathing. 

As to Inerrancy. Even on matters not scientific, 
absolute inerrancy in the Bible is not required, provided 
the portrait of Christ, the facts and doctrines of redemp- 
tion, and the principles of Christian conduct are supplied 
in sufficiency for the Christian consciousness. For exam- 
ple, it is a matter of no great Christian moment what was 
the precise wording of the superscription of the cross. 
On the other hand, such an arbitrary and rationalistic 
reduction of the sayings of Jesus as that made by Pro- 
fessor Schmiedel is a serious modification of the portrait 
of Christ in the gospels and can therefore never be allowed 
by the Christian church. ‘But how are we to draw the 
line?’’ Christian consciousness, simply grant it time for 
comparison and practical test, will draw the line with un- 
failing clearness and firmness. 

The Regions of Liberty. In biblical discussion, within 
the Christian brotherhood, there are four regions of 
liberty: 1. That of the canon. The question here is, 
Does this book really belong to the Bible? 2. That of 
the text. The question here is, Does this text belong to 
the book? or, Does this word belong to the text? 3. That 
of the literature. The questions here are several: Who 
is the author? Is this passage or book composite? What 
is the style, poetry or prose? Is this quotation used 
precisely? What is the historic setting? 4. That of the 
interpretation. The question here is, What does this 
text, or passage, or total writing, mean? These four 
regions belong largely to Christian scholarship, which 
always in the Christian church is to have a place of ap- 
preciation and untrammeled service. Only we must in- 
sist that the scholarship be Christian. A Christian 


176 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


scholar is a scholar with a Christian experience, in full 
relation with Christian men, who does all his work with 
the profoundest sense of responsibility toward every 
other man with a Christian experience. With such an 
experience and with such a relation, and with such a 
spirit, the Christian scholar is constantly under a double 
check: First, the check of the entire brotherhood; and, 
second, the check of the Bible as a whole, or of the Bible 
taken as a redemptional organism of fact and doctrine. 

Saying all this, still I have not given you any just ap- 
preciation of the steadiness of the biblical situation. Not 
merely is the Christian scholar under perpetual check 
himself; but his scholarship is a check upon the haste and 
crudeness in the thinking of the common man. It is 
this endless crossing of brotherly checks, this building a 
consensus of opinion out of every kind of a man—it is the 
vast democracy of Christianity which makes a general 
Christian attitude so reliable. Thus, while the regions 
of liberty are never arbitrarily closed, they are practically 
closed in just the degree that we have Christian agree- 
ment. 

THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE 

The inspiration of the Bible as a subject is often con- 
fused with that of the authority of the Bible; but the two 
involve very different questions, and very different dis- 
cussions, the discussion of authority being much the more 
important, inasmuch as it presupposes the philosophy of 
Christian certainty itself. The question of inspiration is 
really this: How can we explain the power and peculiarity 
of this Christian Book which is final authority on Christ, 
and on the facts, the doctrines, and the moral principles 
of the Christian salvation? 

The Typical Theories. The theories of biblical inspira- 
tion have become so numerous that they can be properly 
classified, and fully discussed, only in a history of doctrine. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 177 


We can spare the space for only the bare mention of the 
four theories which are typical; and even with these we 
must save time by avoiding their incrusted terminology: 
1. The theory that an inspired man is simply one with a 
natural genius for religious insight and leadership. Ac- 
cording to this theory John Wesley was as really inspired 
as was Saint John. 2. The theory that an inspired man 
is simply one with an overflowing Christian experience. 
According to this theory, many an unknown man to-day 
is as really inspired as was Saint Paul. 3. The theory 
that an inspired man is one who is coerced by the Holy 
Spirit into a precise utterance. According to this theory, 
an inspired man is nothing more than a phonograph of 
God. 4. The theory that an inspired man is one who 
receives from the Holy Spirit extraordinary dynamic 
help, but without any violation of the integrity of indi- 
viduality and without any interruption of the action of 
personality. According to this theory, the inspired mes- 
sage comes from the Holy Ghost and the free man in 
psychic conjunction—God speaks through the entire 
peculiarity of a man raised to a higher power. 

The Probability. There is, I am convinced, no worthy 
reason for holding one of these theories to the exclusion 
of the remaining three. The probability is that the 
Word of God was given by a combination of all four 
methods; but it is not now possible for us to decide in 
every case precisely what took place. The data are not 
sufficient. 

The Indorsement Theory. With this probability in 
mind, I will suggest a more comprehensive view of the 
inspiration of the Bible, as follows: 1. The standpoint is 
the process of redemption as a historic movement 
beginning with the preparation for the coming of our 
Lord, culminating in the death of Christ, and completed 
by the work of the apostles. 2. In this long historic 


178 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


process men were chosen, each one in his own peculiar 
situation, to speak, or to write, or to do, whatever was 
essential to further the redemptional movement. 3. For 
this furtherance, these chosen men received only such 
divine help as was needed. At one time it was necessary 
only to emphasize a common moral fact before the people, 
and any brave soul could do it. At another time it was 
necessary to lift a commonplace into spiritual ideality, a 
work which only genius can do. At another time it was 
necessary to organize a nation, and it required the highest 
order of statesmanship. At another time it was necessary 
to have a Christian testimony, and it could be given out of 
any overflowing Christian experience in the early church. 
At another time it was necessary to catch and to express 
a doctrine of grace entirely beyond the possibility of 
natural discovery; and for this work a man was extra- 
ordinarily helped, raised to a higher power, without being 
erased asa free person. At another time it was necessary 
for the man of God to have an absolutely transcendent 
experience, an experience to which he could make no 
individual or personal contribution whatever; and he 
was, for the occasion, actually coerced by the Holy Spirit. 
He had no more freedom than the sky has in accepting a 
sunset. Perhaps he is a prophet, and he looks down the 
centuries, in the swift, clear vision of God himself, until 
he can see “a man of sorrows’’—‘‘smitten of God,” 
“wounded for our transgressions.’’ Or perhaps he is an 
apostle, and he is transported into a realm of immeas- 
urable glory, and hears “unspeakable words, which it is 
not lawful for a man to utter.’’ There are, too, some 
places in the Bible where the best explanation of the very 
phrase is that it came directly from God. And when I 
say the best explanation, I mean the explanation which 
naturally grows out of the Christian conception of God’s 
relation to man in redemption. How extremely absurd 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 179 


it is for any Christian thinker to hold that God could not 
or would not, in the furtherance of redemption, give a 
prophet or an apostle a message as definite as human 
speech. Even the most incipient Christian theist should 
be ashamed of such fundamental inconsistency. 4. This 
psychology of inspiration, however—the precise psychic 
connection between agent and word or deed—is not the 
important thing. The important thing is that the Holy 
Spirit accepted the word or deed, and actually made use 
of it in the histcric process of redemption. By indorsing 
ut the Holy Spirit made the thing his own. It was inspired, 
or inblown, with his intention. As an illustration of my 
meaning, take General Washington’s orders when Alex- 
ander Hamilton was on his staff. The psychology of 
those orders is a very interesting study. Closely we 
examine this order and that, to decide whether it came 
from Washington’s mind entirely, or only in part, or not 
at all; and again and again we find it impossible to tell. 
But the question is purely academic ; for the one supremely 
important thing, in relation to the struggle for inde- 
pendence, is that Washington was there, with a plan, 
under which he considered every order and then signed 
it. It is the indorsement which makes the orders signifi- 
cant. 5. But there is more than this first indorsement 
by actual use in the history of redemption. The Holy 
Spirit was the deeper Will of that entire dynamic process 
by which the Christian church accepted and rejected 
writings and so gradually formed the canon. The forma- 
tion of the canon of Holy Scripture is a second indorse- 
ment. 6. And there is also a third indorsement. For, 
profoundly regarded, the present relation of Christian 
consciousness to the Bible is an indorsement by the 
Holy Spirit. 7. The Bible, therefore, is the Word of 
God, because all the parts of it were actually used by 
the Holy Spirit in the historic process of redemption, 


180 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


because he brought these parts together into an organic 
record of redemption, and because he lives in the whole 
Bible to-day, richly relating it to the Christian conscious- 
ness. Holding this comprehensive indorsement theory, 
we never say, ‘The Bible contains the Word of God.” We 
say, The Bible zs the Word of God. Just as parts of the 
human body are less significant than other parts, and yet 
all are required to make a complete bodily organism, so por- 
tions of Scripture are less important than other portions, 
and yet all come together to furnish to the brotherhood in 
our Lord a full expression of the heart and mind and will 
of God in the salvation of man. 





Wes, 


We conclude that though it is always easy for thoughtless men to 
be orthodox, yet to grasp with any strong practical apprehension the 
theology of Christ is a thing as hard as to practice his moral law. 
Yet, if he meant anything by his constant denunciation of hypocrites, 
there is nothing which he would have visited with sterner censure than 
that short cut to belief which many persons take when, overwhelmed 
with the difficulties which beset their minds, and afraid of damnation, 
they suddenly resolve to strive no longer, but, giving their minds a 
holiday, to rest content with saying that they believe and acting as if 
they did. A melancholy end of Christianity indeed!—John Robert 
Seeley, Ecce Homo, pp. 89, 90. 


Do I then utterly exclude the speculative reason from theology? 
No! it is its office and rightful privilege to determine on the negative 
truth of whatever we are required to believe. The doctrine must not 
contradict any universal principle; for this would be a doctrine that 
contradicted itself. Or philosophy? No. It may be and has been 
the servant and pioneer of faith by convincing the mind that a doctrine 
is cogitable, that the soul can present the idea to itself; and that if we 
determine to contemplate, or think of, the subject at all, so and in no 
other form can this be effected—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to 
Reflection, Works, i, 222. 


Biblical or New Testament theology deals with the thoughts, or 
the mode of thinking, of the various New Testament writers; system- 
atic theology is the independent construction of Christianity as a 
whole in the mind of a later thinker. Here again there is a broad 
and valid distinction, but not an absolute one. It is the Christian 
thinking of the first century in the one case, and of the twentieth, 
let us say, in the other; but in both cases there is Christianity and 
there is thinking, and if there is truth in either, there is bound to be 
a place at which the distinction disappears.—James Denney, The 
Death of Christ, p. 5. 


XIII. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 


In our Introduction the aim was to secure: an 
anthropological foundation for Christian theology, by 
showing that man’s personal and moral development can 
be normally completed only under the terms of the 
Christian religion. With that foundation laid, there now 
comes to us a greater task, namely, to construct a system 
of Christian doctrine. In using the term systematic 
theology the emphasis is to be placed upon the word 
systematic. It is not enough to discuss the doctrines 
separately. It is not enough to show precisely what the 
Bible, on the surface, teaches concerning every doctrine. 
The doctrines are all interlocked at the root. Between 
them there is an underlying philosophical connection. 
This philosophical connection must be revealed. Not 
only so, but the connection must be brought out in such 
a way as gradually to exhibit the Christian faith as one 
mighty organic whole. 

This systematic view of Christianity, seeing it as a 
coherent doctrinal total, is important for several reasons: 
First, because it has an apologetic value. Dr. Wil- 
liam F. Warren once said, ‘‘ An adequate system of doc- 
trine is the only adequate Christian apologetics.” It is 
only when one catches a vision of the Christian organism, 
from an inside doctrinal standpoint, in such a work, say, 
as Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, that he can begin 
to feel the tremendous force of Christian evidence. And 
yet we must at this point note a caution. Systematic 
theology should never be an intentional apology. There 
ought not to be in it even the tiniest trace of mediation 
tactics, Rather should it be so steeped with the Chris- 


184 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


tian severities—with all those Christian peculiarities 
which tax the natural man—as to be positively obnoxious 
to any man who is not straining himself in moral en- 
deavor. A negative test of a worthy systematic theology 
would be that its important message had incurred the dis- 
like of two sorts of men, those who have a slender ethical 
purpose, and those who are trying to make Christianity 
“easier for this scientific age.” But the man who is 
morally open to Christian appeal, the man whose heart 
is breaking under an impossible moral burden, the man 
who prefers to confess that his life is a moral failure 
rather than to compromise with any utilitarian make- 
shift—if that man can be led to perceive the doctrinal con- 
tinuity, the undersweeping granite ledge of the Christian 
system, he will find the apologetics he needs for convic- 
tion. Second, because it has a biblical value. Systematic 
theology is almost as necessary to any comprehensive 
biblical theology as biblical theology is necessary to any 
worthy systematic theology. Often the profounder un- 
derstanding of the Bible teaching involves a philosophical 
grasp of all Christian truth. Who, for instance, could 
ever master the Epistle to the Romans without such 
philosophical grasp? There are in that epistle single 
statements which are in root-relation to almost every 
primary doctrine of the Christian system. Third, because 
it has a practical value in balancing and steadying the 
Christian life. A Christian experience which is nourished 
by isolated, unrelated doctrine is likely to lose all balance, 
and to become an exceedingly unwholesome thing. Take 
the great doctrine of personal faith itself and tear it out 
of its moral and Christian connections, and what a dan- 
gerous transformation it undergoes! It was faith, but 
now it is presumption of the most perilous degree. Can 
you not see that systematic theology tends to prevent this 
exaltation of the fragment at the expense of the whole? 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 185 


Had that Christian man who has so eagerly accepted 
“Christian Science”’ only once been able to see Christianity 
stand out in its total meaning and in all its bearings upon 
life, could he, think you, have taken, in place of Christian- 
ity, a weak trituration of pantheism? 

In constructing a system of Christian doctrine: the 
source for all the data is the Bible, and the Bible alone. 
The data, however, are not obtained by making a collec- 
tion of “ proof-texts.’’ Whether a text is to be used or 
not depends upon its relation to the entire biblical organ- 
ism. One text may tersely express a gospel trend; and 
so may have the utmost worth, while another text may 
express but a passing phase of the historic movement, 
and so may contribute nothing to the final system. 
First of all, the systematic theologian must have, as a 
basis, a genuine biblical theology. And I mean here 
something far beyond the fragmentary works which are 
often published in the name of biblical theology. The 
whole Bible must be philosophically grasped as a Christian 
unity which is manifested in variety. The moment this 
is done there will be seen a center to the Bible; and without 
doubt that center is the death of our Lord. There is no! 
\possibility of any profound biblical study without instant 
‘and constant recognition of that center. But even this 
‘is not enough. Not only must all biblical values be de- 
termined from the center; but also the result must be 
regarded afresh over against the consciousness of the 
Christian church. All the doctrinal struggles in the past, 
all the great creeds, all the great works in theology, all 
the Christian biographies, everything which expresses 
Christian experience, must be studied by the systematic 
theologian to get at the Christian consciousness. This 
Christian consciousness is not a source, it furnishes no 
data; but it lights up the data, it unfolds the norms, it 
helps one to see the biblical truth more Christianly. “A 


186 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


man’s eye is not authority on an elm tree, but it enables 
him to see the tree."’ But even this is not enough. The 
systematic theologian must study his own age day and 
night, until he can distinguish between the real Christian 
consciousness of his own time and the Zeztgeist. The 
Zeitgeist is a spirit of the world always rationalistic, never 
Christian, and seldom even profoundly ethical. Surely 
that theologian is extremely unfortunate who ever needs 
to say to the Zeitgeist, “‘ What will you allow me to be- 
lieve?”? But if the assertion in the real Christian con- 
sciousness of our day is beginning to change; if men are 
now actually converted, if they grow in grace, if they 
possess the richest joys in Christian experience, if they 
have large consolation in their sorrows, if they are in 
constant Christian fellowship, if they are giving their 
lives in self-sacrificing service—and yet in all this experi- 
ence and fellowship and service they manifest no interest 
in this or that doctrine, no need of it, no certainty about 
it—we here have a Christian situation which demands the 
most serious attention of the systematic theologian. 
But even all this is not enough. The systematic theolo- 
gian has something himself. He too has a new life in 
Christ. He has a new conception of God, of man, and of 
the universe. ‘‘Old things are passed away; behold, all 
things are become new.”” He has personal certainties 
which speak in his consciousness with the urgency of 
thunder. He has a vision in which the Christian total 
stands out like the outline of a continent. Can he 
throw all this experience away? He dare not. By all 
the moral worth and spiritual majesty of this new life 
which God has given to him he must be absolutely and 
sacredly true to himself. His task, then, is to take his 
own Christian consciousness, together with that of the 
present time, together with that of all Christian history, 
and with the aid of all these so to interpret and relate the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 187 


normative biblical data as to reveal the whole organic 
plan of redemption. 

Now an admission should be made which may tend 
to increase the prevailing prejudice against systematic 
theology. No systematic theology, worth the making, 
can be constructed without more or less tentative specu- 
lation. The practical man has such a dread of speculation 
that when the word is mentioned he instantly thinks of 
the doctrinaire. But every great step in practical in- 
vention and discovery, and even in the sciences, is made 
by speculation. Professor Huxley called it “ the scientific 
imagination”; but he meant exactly what I mean by 
tentative speculation. You have the unyielding data 
in the various facts. To all these facts you must tena- 
ciously hold. Then you must imagine harmonizing con- 
nections; you must fling bridges from fact to fact until 
they are all interrelated. There is a test of the worth of 
your work in its social confirmation; that is, in the actual 
use of your bridges by other men. Or, coming to Chris- 
tian thinking, suppose that we can make a philosophical 
connection between future punishment and the integrity 
of moral personality, protecting every statement in the 
Bible, and make this connection in such a manner that 
every converted man responds to it, we will have in this 
response a Christian confirmation of the reality of the 
connection made by speculation. And there is further 
confirmation if our speculative work at this point sug- 
gests deeper meanings for other Christian facts, or tends 
to bring out more sharply the significance of redemption 
as a totality. 

If you have fully caught my conception, you can 
readily see that a genuine systematic theology is a work 
having no formal authority whatever. It is a mistake, I 
think, to call it dogmatics, or to give it any ecclesiastical 
position, or in any way to relate it to doctrinal lordship. 


188 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


It is not your ruler, but your friend, trying to make 
Christianity satisfy your entire manhood, by bringing 
out all the profound moral connections, and by showing 
that the redemption in Jesus Christ’s atonement is the 
one key to all there is in the universe. Saint Paul him- 
self began to indicate the province of systematic theology, 
for he could not keep from philosophical thinking in his 
greater epistles; and he expressed the real spirit of the 
matter when he said, ‘‘Not that we have lordship over 
your faith, but are helpers of your joy.” 


ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THIS BOOK 


THE INTRODUCTION 


Man as a moral person related to the Christian religion. 

Man as a social and racial person related to the Christian religion. 
The philosophy of Christian certainty. 

. The Bible as the basis of a system of doctrine. 


hk WD 


THE SYSTEM 


. The Conception of Systematic Theology. 

The interpretation of the doctrinal data of the Bible, from the 
standpoint of Christian consciousness, with the purpose of re- 
vealing the plan of redemption as an organic whole. 

2. The Central Note. ) 

The redemption of man as a racial brotherhood of individual 
moral persons. 

3. The Doctrinal Divisions. 
First Division—Man’s need of redemption. 
Second Division—Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer. 
Third Division—Our Lord’s redemptive work. 
Fourth Division—Redemption realized in the new man. 
Fifth Division—Redemption realized in the new race. 
Sixth Division—The Triune God revealed in redemption. 


THE FIRST DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
MAN’S NEED OF REDEMPTION 


Starting, then, with the being of a God (which, as I have said, is as 
certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I 
try to put the grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a diffi- 
culty in doing so in mood and figure to my satisfaction), I look out of 
myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me 
with unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie 
to that great truth of which my whole being is so full; and the effect 
upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as 
if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a mirror, 
and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which 
actually comes upon me when I look into this living, busy world and 
see no reflection of its Creator. .. . To consider the world in its 
length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their 
starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and 
then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enter- 
prises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquire- 
ments, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so 
faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of 
what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if 
from unreasoning elements, not toward final causes, the greatness 
and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the 
curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat 
of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prev- 
alence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, 
the dreary, hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so 
fearfully yet exactly described in the apostle’s words, “having no 
hope and without God in the world’’—all this is a vision to dizzy and 
appall; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, 
which is absolutely beyond human solution. 

What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? 
I can only answer, that either there is no Creator or this living so- 
ciety of men is in a true sense discarded from his presence. Did I 
see a boy of good make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined 
nature, cast upon the world without provision, unable to say whence 
he came, his birthplace or his family connections, I should conclude 
that there was some mystery connected with his history, and that he 
was one of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed. 
Thus only should I be able to account for the contrast between the 
promise and the condition of his being. And so I argue about the 
world; if there be a God, since there is a God, the human race is im- 
plicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with 
the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact 
of its existence; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called 
original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, 
and as the existence of God.— John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita 
Sua, pp. 241-243. 


XIV. THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN 


The Scripture Account. By a number of mediating 
theologians this biblical account of the creation and fall 
of man is regarded as a myth. The term myth itself is 
not precisely fixed in its meaning; but it may mean 
something far beyond an intentional fiction, it may mean 
even a crude expression of real belief. It is in this higher 
sense that the term is used by the more conservative of 
these mediating theologians. If they are evolutionists, 
as is usually the case, the myth is to them the distinctive 
mark of a necessary period in man’s normal development, 
“an inevitable product of the human mind in certain 
stages of culture.’’ Holding this higher view, they never 
throw a religious myth away; rather do they study it 
with large seriousness, expecting to discover important 
data for anthropology. Belonging, as a choice inner 
circle, to this conservative group, there are a few writers 
who add a further and most important point, namely, 
that the biblical myth, although it has no historic worth, 
does have a Christian worth, inasmuch as it teaches such 
moral and religious truth as tends to prepare the mind 
for the full appreciation of the later Christian spirit and 
doctrine. In all fairness it should be said that this view 
possesses much apologetic force and is capable of an ex- 
tremely conservative exposition. Possibly it is the only 
view which now can be honestly held by a great many 
thoughtful Christian men. And yet I cannot accept it. 
It seems to me to be nothing but a restless pause on the 
way to rationalism. There is a better view, I am sure— 
a view which is reasonable, and which has in it the soul 
of the Christian contention for the supernatural. Doubt- 


192 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


less we have here, in this Scripture account, a world- 
tradition which is not to be taken in bald literalism; but 
I can see no forcible reason why it may not be a picture- 
narrative of actual fact. Why may it not be solid history 
in naive drama? Neither the word poetry nor the word 
symbolism is nicely adequate, for both these words sug- 
gest a purpose too deliberately idealistic for this chapter 
of the childhood of mankind. Could we hear an American 
Indian (one not yet sophisticated by civilization) describe 
an event of great importance to his tribe, an event per- 
haps involving war, his whole power in single aim to tell 
the exact fact, we would certainly understand the dra- 
matic naiveté of this biblical account. The rib, the tree, 
the apple, the serpent, are a picturesque way of talking, 
that is all, and just the kind of language men would 
everywhere use had we dared to keep close to the glory of 
our childhood. That there may be no chance for mis- 
understanding, I will give an analytical statement of my 
full view: 1. This scriptural account of the creation and 
fall of man is a record of historic facts. 2. These facts 
are given in naive dramatic form—‘‘the primitive style 
of narration characteristic of the age in which it was 
written.”” 3. The account was handed down from the 
beginning as a world-tradition based upon an original 
revelation from God. 4. This world-tradition was, at 
last, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, cleansed 
(an examination of the traditions in the ethnic religions 
will show how necessary such a cleansing came to be), 
cleansed for a redemptional use. 5. As thus cleansed this 
world-tradition was established in the canon by the Holy 
Spirit. 6. Thus, what we have is a world-tradition 
cleansed and indorsed by the Holy Spirit for its redemp- 
tional meaning. 

The Significance of Man. If, with this conception of 
the account, we examine it closely, we shall find that it 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 193 


teaches certain things which are, from a redemptional 
standpoint, of the utmost importance in bringing out the 
significance of man: 1. God himself made man. Man is 
of divine origin. 2. Man was made as the summit of 
creation. The whole universe is but a getting ready for 
man. 3. Man was created in “the image of God.” 
That is, man has moral personality like God himself. 
The exegesis which makes this “image of God’’ to mean 
man’s delegated rulership over the animal kingdom is 
exceedingly superficial. He was placed over the animal 
kingdom because he was a moral person at the summit 
of creation. 4. Man was created a social being under a 
racial plan. 

The Purpose of Creation. By noting all these items of 
significance the divine purpose in creating man becomes 
evident. God purposed to have not a higher animal, 
not a more consummate automaton, but a moral person, 
a creature free under supreme moral demand; not an 
isolated moral person, but a race with the most intricate 
social entanglement. Bringing together the three fea- 
tures, the personal, the moral, and the racial, we may 
concisely state the purpose of creation thus: The aim was 
to obtain a racial brotherhood of moral persons. 

._ The Motwwe of Creation. To hold, as many do, that 
God’s motive in creating man was love is perilously in- 
sufficient. If we keep in harmony with the conclusions 
reached in our Introduction, the least we can say is that 
the divine motive was moral love. But even in saying 
this we do not quite touch the root of the matter. To 
touch this root, I need to make reference to a basal prin- 
ciple which will come up again in a most serious dis- 
cussion, namely, the principle of personal self-expression. 
It is inherent in the very nature of personality to seek 
objective expression. Personality must get out in some 
manner, or violate its own law of structure. Pure sub- 


104 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


jectivity is a primal personal experience, but it is far 
from being the entirety of a person’s normal life. Nor 
are we passing into what we considered under man’s 
social urgency. The need of self-expression is not a part 
of that need of companionship which arises from personal 
loneliness. Give a person all the companionship his 
nature craves, companionship of the greatest variety and 
of the finest quality, and still he will keep trying to 
express his inner life. Again I say, and, if possible, a little 
more emphatically, that a person is fundamentally a 
creator. The moment he has self-knowledge of an inner 
world he wants to make an outer world. This imperious 
law, or principle, of self-expression is the very nerve of 
great exploits, great art, great literature. I do not say 
that utilitarian motives may not be added, I do not say 
that utilitarian motives may not help. But the initial 
thrust for any great creative work is the personal longing 
for self-expression; and there are instances where this 
personal longing furnishes the entire motivity. Recently 
I heard, with increasing wonder, Beethoven’s Fifth 
Symphony. And after coming out of the rapture of the 
bewilderment I said: ‘“‘ There is only one way to explain 
the enormous prodigality of this symphony: Beethoven 
was trying to fling out every thought and every feeling 
of his soul! He wanted to express himself.” 

This principle of self-expression must ever be kept in 
mind, to understand the divine prodigality in creating 
the universe. There are countless things in the world 
which burst the bands of all economy. “Every flower 
is useful, if we only know enough to find it out.” Yes, 
useful as a part of the vast creation made to express 
something of God’s inner life. And this cosmic expres- 
sion is a preparation for a later and more sublime expres- 
sion of God’s inner life. In that one comprehensive way 
I can allow you to preserve the idea of utility. Now we are 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 195 


perhaps open to the important point: The race of mankind 
is, in plan, a brotherhood of moral persons created to express 
the love of God which 1s both social and holy. In our final 
discussion of the Trinity we shall try to see all that this 
statement means. Now itis enough to affirm that it is only 
from the standpoint of the full Christian doctrine of the 
Trinity, as one organism of three self-conscious persons 
with interrelations of holy love, that the creation of man 
can be explained without yielding to the philosophy of 
pantheism. From this Trinitarian standpoint, we can 
discover perfect divine motive, and still not swamp the 
motive in a divine necessity. In the words of Bishop 
Martensen: “In a certain sense one may say that God 
created the world in order to satisfy a want in himself; 
but the idea of God’s love requires us to understand this 
want as quite as truly a superfluity.” 


An ANALYTICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE FALL oF MANn 


1. With the New Testament teaching in mind, one 
should, I think, give Satan historical position and em- 
phasis in any surface interpretation of the Scripture 
account of the fall of man. But in any deeper philo- 
sophical interpretation he has no significance other than 
that of method in test. Man fell as a moral person 
responsibly free, and the external form of the temptation, 
whether this or that, could make no essential difference. 
Satan could create no motive; he could simply bring to 
pressure motives which man himself must sooner or 
later feel. 

2. Looking closely at the case of Eve, we discover 
three essential motives for sin, namely: first, physical 
craving; second, cosmic curiosity; third, the personal 
spring toward self-assertion. 

3. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good 
for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes.’”’ This 


190 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


surely means that the senses were involved, that the 
bodily life was bound up in the temptation. And this 
is precisely what we would expect, for man can have no 
bodily life, with a conscience, and not be tempted at 
some time. Even our Lord did not escape this test which 
comes from the body. There are several sorts of physical 
craving, but, philosophically considered, they are all 
equally significant. They, all of them, are natural ur- 
gencies which are to be controlled under higher concern. 
To have any worthy moral character a person must 
master his entire body in the name of his moral ideal. 

4. “And that the tree was to be desired to make one 
wise.”” The thing meant here is not that larger wisdom 
which is charged with moral quality, but rather that 
experience which one gets by finding out for himself what 
there is in the world. It is just the experience which 
Goethe was ever seeking; to find out all there is, whether 
high or low—to exhaust the cosmos. The eager curiosity 
which urges a person to make this quest I have called 
cosmic, or world, curiosity. As a motive it is even more 
fundamental than physical craving, and is very essential 
to man’s development and to the progress of civilization. 

5. “ Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree 
of the garden?” This plainly means that the tempta- 
tion was an appeal to the spring of self-assertion, which 
is in our personal makeup even more profoundly than is 
cosmic curiosity. Personal freedom itself implies not only 
the power for self-assertion, but also the spring, the leap 
of the person toward it. Take any boy, however noble, 
and tell him that he must not do a certain thing, and 
even if he submits to natural or moral authority his 
first healthy impulse is to resist the command, The 
entire psychological movement is gathered up by that 
phrase of the common people, “It wasn’t easy, but he 
gave up.” 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 197 


6. The most convincing line in Milton’s epic is this: 
“From thy state mine never shall be parted.” Of 
course, this is, on the surface, a poet’s large license in 
dealing with the Scripture words: ‘And she gave also 
unto her husband with her, aud he did eat.’”’ But, in 
the depths, Milton has found the fact of social influence, 
an influence which often operates with the three inherent 
motives already mentioned. If your wife, or any friend, 
or even any associate, does wrong, it is harder, other 
things being normal, for you yourself to do right. No 
man, in personal health, wants to be holy all alone. 
Thus, when any person sins, or when any person resists 
sin, the whole psychological situation is suddenly changed. 
No new cause of personal volition is produced, but the 
occasional background is changed. 

7. There are now two things which should be lifted 
into the utmost emphasis: First, these four motives— 
physical desire, cosmic curiosity, the personal spring 
toward self-assertion, and social influence—are, in and of 
themselves, not only good, but absolutely essential to 
the development of the man, and to the progress of so- 
ciety. Second, every one of these four motives becomes 
at once bad when it urges a moral person to disobey God, 
or to violate any moral ideal. In other words, the pos- 
sibility of sin is necessarily involved in the fact of moral 
personality itself. There cannot be a free person placed 
under a moral demand without his having both the 
volitional ability and the personal motive to violate that 
demand. Either the universe must be altogether au- 
tomatic, with no opportunity for moral character, or 
there must be granted the possibility of personal sin. 
This endless discussion of ‘the mystery of evil’ —how 
superficial, how lacking in all moral acumen, itis! Inany 
serious home, in the upbuilding of the moral life of any 
child, there is seen, again and again, the clue to this 


198 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


‘mystery beyond all our wisdom.” Let a father once 
say to a child, in the name of higher concern, “Thou 
shalt not!” and there will be the personal battle of Eden 
all over again. God did not want transgression, but 
he did want the possibility of it, because he wanted per- 
sonal sainthood. All evil in possibility is the awful price 
which had to be paid for any personal sainthood. 

But, it is often urged, the Edenic test was unfair because 
our first parents had no knowledge of the dreadful con- 
sequences of their disobedience. ‘Had they only known 
they would have obeyed.” This objection also reveals 
a lack of moral grasp. Every moral conflict is a personal 
conflict under an ideal; and never can the personal sig- 
nificance of the struggle be changed by knowledge of any 
sort or amount. Excepting this: There are times when 
complete knowledge of results creates such an over- 
whelming fear that all personal action, and so all moral 
meaning, becomes impossible. In such cases, the moral 
probation must be shifted to another point where there 
is less knowledge. 

The first sin was a personal act of disobedience. It 
was a taking of self in place of God. In the startling 
words of Philippi, ‘‘Man’s self-assertion to Godhead was 
his fall.”” Personal sin is the supreme egotism of a moral 
person. It is getting one’s own way over against duty. 
It is selfishness. One of the characters in Tennyson’s 
Becket is made to say, ‘‘If I had been Eve 1’ the garden 
I shouldn’t ha’ minded the apple, for what’s an apple, 
you know, save to a child?” Every such treatment of 
the account (and there are many) misses in the accidents 
the supreme selfishness of the scene. Man did not care 
enough about God to do his will. That was the fall of 
man. 


XV. THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 


THE term szv is used in so many ways that it is, in 
systematic theology, especially important to secure a 
more rigid classification of phases under the general 
term. The underlying idea of any kind of sin is that of 
lawlessness, or dvowia. In the widest sense a sinner is 
anyone who does not measure up to God’s perfect law. 
Taken in this generic meaning the Westminster definition 
is perfect: “Any want of conformity unto or transgres- 
sion of the law of God.” 

Personal Sin. But when John Wesley said that sin is 
“a voluntary transgression of a known law” he was 
not thinking of sin in this sweeping manner, he was think- 
ing of a responsible violation of God’s law. For such 
violation it is evident there must be knowledge of what 
the law is, and a personal intention to break it. Why 
may we not say, then, that under generic sin there is 
personal sin, or that sin for which the moral person is 
accountable? Precisely analyzed, in relation to ethics, 
there are three features in all personal sin, namely: 1. A 
moral standard; 2. This standard in actual grasp by the 
personal judgment as to right and wrong; 3. Personal 
intention. Surely you can see that this personal sin 
cannot be inherited? No man can inherit another man’s 
personal bearing toward moral judgment. In fact, no 
personal act, or activity, or experience, can be inherited. 
Strictly speaking, nothing personal can ever be passed 
from being to being. And inasmuch as the personal 
deed, or attitude, cannot be inherited, it is inconceivable 
that the personal responsibility for such deed or attitude 
can be inherited. The theological conception of “an 


200 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


inherited guilt” results from a full failure to understand 
what personal life is, on the one hand, and what moral 
life is, on the other hand. With a few verbal changes, I 
would adopt Bishop Foster’s words: “Sin is something 
which the individual man does; it is an act. There is no 
sin where there is not a sinner; and there is no sinner 
where there is not an act committed by him which con- 
stitutes him a sinner.” 

Individual Depravity. In considering depravity we 
need to bring up again the distinction made in this work 
between the individual and the person. Under the fact 
that man is a person is the fact that he is an individual 
being with body and soul. Before a babe comes to self- 
consciousness he has a fundament of being with a com- 
plex of characteristics which are some of them physical 
and some of them psychical. The sum total of such 
characteristics I call the individuality of the child. This 
individuality is developed, and even modified, as the 
child grows. Indeed, the whole complex of native char- 
acteristics is at last treated from the standpoint of self- 
consciousness. And the ultimate man is, as I have said 
before, the individual personalized by the self-decisive 
rejection and indorsement of original traits. 

By depravity we mean that this basal individual life 
of a man is inorganic. The native characteristics are a 
clutter of items as unrelated as the odds and ends one 
finds in an attic. The term total depravity is one of those 
unfortunate phrases with which the scholastic theologian 
is fond of weakening his message; but there is a profound 
sense in which a man is, as he comes into the world, 
totally depraved. The point was brought out in our 
study of morality, and is this: No man can organize his 
individual life under the demand of conscience. He is 
totally unable even to start an organism. And the greater 
his development in moral personality the greater the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 201 


impossibility of that adjustment which secures wholeness 
and peace in manhood. It is this inorganic condition of 
a man’s fundamental, individual being which I under- 
stand to be depravity. Every man comes inorganic into 
the world. Concerning this inorganic condition of de- 
pravity, there are two things so patent that they require 
no proof whatever: The first is the fact that depravity 
is universal. No organic man is ever born. The sec- 
ond thing is that depravity is zuhertted. The person is 
a new creation, personality is never repeated, no man 
receives ability for self-consciousness and self-decision 
from his ancestors. But the individual has his complex 
of traits under the law of heredity. In other words, in- 
dividuality is a racial matter and personality is not. 
Thus, inorganic individuality is inherited. 

This, though, only raises a larger question: “‘ Why is it 
that the free moral person cannot organize his individual 
being under his moral ideal?’’ This question, you will 
remember, we answered thus: The natural moral life is 
one of fear, and fear is not an organizing motive; the man 
needs to have for organization the motive of moral love. 
In a simple word, no man can be complete unless he actu- 
ally loves the Holy God. Now we must push the dis- 
cussion into a further recess. Why does man have this 
fear under moral authority? Because, I say, man now 
lives under the dominion of conscience alone, and he was 
not made so to live. Conscience itself is a ragged, un- 
finished item. Man was planned to live in constant per- 
sonal intimacy with God, and to have his moral life 
perfectly saturated with that blessed holy fellowship. 
Just as one of our children is born into a home, and 
‘gradually, as the little human life opens into personality, 
comes to the personal grasp and regard for the father 
and mother, so it was intended that a man should be at 
home with God. But now man is an outcast from the 


202 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


personal vision and intimacy with God. No wonder he 
is afraid all alone out there under that vast, vague, ever- 
growing, absolutely pitiless moral demand. “So he 
drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the 
garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame of a sword 
which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of 
life.’ This, then, is my understanding of depravity: 
Man’s entire individual being is inorganic in its relation 
to the moral person. It is thus inorganic because the 
moral person lives under moral fear. And he lives under 
fear because he has been banished from the divine fellow- 
ship and is but a lonely slave under moral law. 

The Broken Brotherhood. In the Arminian sense (re- 
sponsible transgression) there can be no such thing as 
racial sin; but the race can be racially dvopia, it can 
be out of joint with its under plan, it can be a failure. 
This is what we should mean by racial sin. Let us urge 
the meaning for a moment. The human race was de- 
signed to be an organic brotherhood of moral persons, 
in which every member would fit into the life of all, and 
minister to the progress and joy of all, and receive 
stimulus and social companionship and positive sup- 
plement from all. But this great plan has been defeated 
by sin. Precisely as the individual man is inorganic, so 
the race is inorganic. The brotherhood is broken. Here 
and there we have a pathetic group of men trying to help 
each other, but often a large part of their effort is sheer 
waste. Of course, it is easy enough to contribute to the 
surface comfort of men; but to enter their real life, to 
understand them, profoundly to enlarge them and bless 
them, is an extremely difficult matter. Now think of 
doing this for all men, and you will begin to realize the 
awful extent of our racial failure! The cause of this racial 
failure is twofold: First, every individual member of the 
race is born depraved, and many members of the race 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 203 


are living in personal sin. Thus, the racial members 
are not capable of racial coalescence. And, second, the 
race has lost its center of organism. That center was to 
be God in immediate personal companionship with all 
men. To say that the race now exists only through the 
omnipresence of God is to miss the point altogether. The 
point is not that God is needed as a present power, but 
that God is needed as a present personal companion. 
Men need to enjoy the actual vision of God as their su- 
preme Friend. And all aims should begin in this vision, 
and all activities should feel the warmth of this vision 
even as in a cloudless day every growing thing feels the 
warmth of the sun. This conception is so sublime that 
we are timid before it, but we must dare to seize it. 
Never can we understand the work of our Lord until we 
can see that the original purpose was to have a brother- 
hood of men made complete by fellowship with God. 
God’s Hatred of Sin. When we try to explain this 
recession of the divine personal companionship from the 
race and the individual man there are several halfway 
things which can be said in the spirit of euphemism; but 
it is much more wholesome to state at once, and with 
plainness, the final fact. The recession is due to God’s 
hatred of sin. But this hatred must be carefully related 
to our sentiment ; for this is one of those places where the 
Christian feeling is fully as important as the Christian 
idea. We must not go to the one extreme of holding 
that the divine hatred is arbitrary, is a thing merely of 
God’s naked and unrelated will. We must not feel that 
“God could have a different attitude toward sin, if he 
only would.’”’ We must realize that God could not be 
God, that he could not exist at all, without hating sin. 
But we must not go to the other extreme of holding that 
this divine hatred is but an intense smiting by an imper- 
sonal law, and that there is no personality involved. If 


204 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


in any way you drop the personal element out of the 
hatred, you will lose, altogether or in part, its mighty 
ethical stroke. In the deepest sense, no impersonal 
bearing or performance can be ethical. No, we are to 
think (and then to feel it) of the law of God’s holiness as 
plunging eternally into his absolutely exhaustive self- 
consciousness, and there furnishing motive for an active, 
personal hatred of all sin as a violation of that fundamental 
holiness. Thus, God not only hates sin, but he means to 
hate tt. 

This divine hatred of sin is expressed not only in de- 
pravity and the broken brotherhood, but also in the nat- 
ural world. I have said several partial things about 
nature, but it is now necessary to give a thoroughly Chris- 
tian view. The reason why nature is such a bewildering 
jumble—now declaring the glory of God, and then be- 
coming as voiceless as the sphinx; now as gentle as a 
mother, and then as cruel as a monster; now suggesting 
the most noble mood, and then actually violating every 
known moral principle—the reason for this bewildering 
jumble is that nature also is a broken organism. Ina 
low sense, it is an organism still, it is organic as a physical 
system, and it appeals to the individual. But the world 
of nature is no longer competent for inan asa moral person. 
God has not withdrawn from the cosmos as its cause, its 
present force, its life, its beauty ; but as a divine revelation, 
as a word from the Infinite, Moral, Personal Being, the 
universe has been cast aside. Just as the individual man 
and the whole race are broken, so the home of man and 
the race is broken. Consequently the cosmos is to be 
finally destroyed. There is to be not only a new man, 
and a new race, but also a new universe. Redemption is 
to cover the person, the race, and their perfect home. 

Even now we have not exhausted the expressions of 
God’s hatred of sin. There is one more expression and 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 205 


that the most dreadful of all—death. In relation to 
the death of Christ it will be necessary to bring out the 
full Christian interpretation of death; but a general, ten- 
tative word should be spoken in this connection. A 
most striking evidence of the success with which science 
has eaten into the very vitals of Christian opinion is seen 
in the typical modern Christian view of death, and even 
of the death of Christ. If one ever could die of a broken 
heart he might, I think, be justified in doing so after read- 
ing some of those popular poems and sermons and books 
which try to show that death is almost, if not quite, 
the most useful and the most beautiful event in human 
experience. But if I understand, even in the smallest 
measure, the substance of the Christian faith, death should 
be to the Christian consciousness an abnormal event, 
a monstrous action of physical law against man, to ex- 
press in every movement of its loathsome and appalling 
process God’s boundless hatred of sin. The race is a 
failure, and therefore it is to be destroved. Beyond the 
grave there will be no Adamic race, but a new race in 
which our Lord will take the place of Adam. This 
racial destruction is by the method of death. The body, 
the old racial nexus, is to be torn from the man, and then 
to be made the starting point for another body, a new 
and a glorious social nexus. The entire divine bearing 
in death and depravity can, I think, be expressed in this 
way: God so loves man that he will himself pay the most 
costly price for man’s salvation; but he so hates sin that 
he must secure, at every step of the way, a most 
extraordinary and even abnormal expression of his holy 
hatred. Man can be saved, because God loves him, but 
the path of salvation must be one violently out of course. 
Thus, we may say that depravity, and the broken race, 
and the wrench in nature, and the death of men—cul- 
minating in the death of our Lord—all manifest God’s 


206 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


hatred of sin, but they manifest that hatred as an awful 
background from which stands out the infinite love of 
God toward men. 

The Peril of Sin. Depravity in and of itself has no 
peril. As related to the work of the Holy Spirit, all 
depravity can ever do is to change the form of the con- 
flict of the moral person. Nor is the peril of sin in a 
habit of vice. Vice is really a superficial thing, and, 
at its worst, but an expression of depravity or of personal 
sin. The peril of sin lies in the fascination of personal sin, 
in that extreme self-assertion which is selfishness. In 
the very nature of the case, every untested, every un- 
subdued person wants hisown way. And if you place this 
untested person under a moral law he will have instant 
interest in breaking the law. Personality itself must be 
chastened by free choice into the enjoyment of lawful- 
ness. But let the free person once break the law, once 
get the taste of lawlessness, once have wildly throbbing in 
consciousness the experience of an immoral freebooter, and 
the untrammeled self-assertion is endlessly fascinating. 
And just here lies the dreadful peril. For this personal 
bearing in selfishness will soon stiffen into personal habit; 
to endure any moral restraint will become more and 
more irksome; until finally there will be no motive to 
submit to moral demand. This means, indeed, that the 
moral demand itself has been emptied of all urgency. 
And that means nothing less than everlasting moral death. 


: DEFINITIONS 
1. Si. 


In the most comprehensive generic sense, human sin is any 
nonconformity on the part of man to God's law. Most tersely, 
sin is lawlessness. 

2. Individual Depravity. 

When this nonconformity to God’s law is an inherited inorganic 
condition of the individual man, the sin is individual sin, or 
depravity. Most tersely, depravity is irresponsible lawlessness 
in individuality. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 207 


3. Personal Sin. 

When the nonconformity to God’s law is an intentional viola- 
tion, in act or bearing, the sin is personal sin. Theologically, 
personal sin is responsible lawlessness in self-decision. Ethically, 
personal sin is a self-conscious violation of the moral judgment. 
Practically, personal sin is selfishness. 

4. Racial Sin. 

When the nonconformity to God’s law is in the rupture of the 
racial plan for solidarity in human fellowship, the sin is racial 
sin, or race depravity. Most tersely, racial sin is lawlessness in 
social life. 


Man’s NEED OF REDEMPTION 

Man needs redemption in three ways: 

1. As a moral person, a responsible sinner before God, 
a man needs to be forgiven, and united with God. 

2. Asa disrupted man, individual, personal, and moral, 
he needs to have his entire being reorganized and har- 
monized and made complete. 

3. As a shattered brotherhood, mankind needs to be 
made over into a new race, with a divine center, and a 
membership of perfect coalescence in love and service. 








___ THE SECOND DOCTRINAL DIVISION 


At last the weapon which they had been seeking, to cut off the 
head of their enemy, was suddenly drawn from his own scabbard. 
A letter was produced from Eusebius of Nicomedia, in which he 
declared that to assert the Son to be uncreated would be to say that 
he was ‘‘of one substance’’ (éuoovecov) with the Father. . . . The 
letter produced a violent excitement. There was the very test for 
which they were in search. The letter was torn in pieces to mark 
their indignation, and the phrase which he had pledged himself to 
reject became the phrase which they pledged themselves to adopt.— 
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Eastern Church, p. 228. 


. . . And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of 
the Father, only begotten that is to say, of the substance of the Father, 
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not 
made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things 
were made, both things in heaven and things in earth—who for us 
men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, and was 
made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day; went up into 
the heavens, and is to come again to judge the quick and dead.— 
Translation of the passage as first read at Nicea. 


XVI. THE DEITY OF OUR LORD 


THERE are five methods by which it is possible to 
construct an argument for the deity of our Lord; but I 
shall not make exact use of any one of these methods. 
Indeed, my aim is not to build a formal, logical argument 
of any kind, but rather to show how closely our Lord’s 
divinity is related to his work in redemption. 

A word should be said concerning the use of Saint John’s 
gospel. To trace all the windings of the criticism of the 
fourth gospel is not feasibly within the scope of the plan 
of this book. A bald personal assertion must suffice. A 
Christian scholar can master the entire range of critical 
discussion down to the latest contentions of Abbé Loisy, 
and still have unshaken confidence in the Johannine 
authorship and in the reliability of the fourth gospel as 
a record of the words and deeds of our Saviour. The 
best Christian scholarship will never give up this in- 
valuable, this greatest gospel. I shall, therefore, in my 
discussion, make not even the slightest discrimination’ 
in favor of the synoptic gospels. Perhaps, however, it 
may be well to add that the force of this discussion 
would be essentially the same, even though not one pas- 
sage were quoted from Saint John. 


THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OuR LoRD AS RELATED TO 


REDEMPTION 
His Mission. 


1. It is clearly in the consciousness of our Lord that 
his mission was to save men. His full conception of 
his work is gathered up in these words, recorded by 
Saint Luke (1g. 10): ‘‘For the Son of man came to seek 


212 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


and to save that which was lost.’ If it be urged that he 
came to establish ‘the kingdom of God”’ the answer is 
that his very conception of that kingdom (as related to 
men) was not merely philanthropic but actually re- 
demptional. The personal entrance into that kingdom 
was only possible by being born anew (Saint John 3. 3). 
And sinners were called to repentance (Saint Luke 5. 32). 

2. For this mission of redemption he had given up all 
the glory of his preéxistent state. (Read all of the 
seventeenth chapter of Saint John’s gospel and compare 
it with the passage in the Epistle to the Philippians, 
2. 5—II.) 

3. In carrying out this mission of redemption he is 
to lay down his life for men. In the tenth chapter of 
Saint John’s gospel read the comparison of himself with 
the “‘Good Shepherd.”’ 

4. More definitely, this laying down his life was to 
be a ransom paid—a ransom for many. “For the Son 
of man also came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Saint 
Mark 10. 45; also Saint Matt. 20. 28; and compare with 
Saint Matt. 26. 28). 

If we now put together these four points, surely we 
must affirm as much as this: It was clearly in our Lord’s 
self-consciousness that he had, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, 
given up the glory of his original estate and come into 
this world with the one purpose to ransom men from sin 
by means of his own death. 

His Relation to Men. 

5. Jesus ever regards himself as the final authority for 
men. Notice the tone of authority in his forms of speech: 
“Verily, verily, I say unto you;” “Ye have heard how it 
hath been said, but I say unto you.’’ Sometimes the 
strangest thing in his speech is not its content, but its 
manner, the way it manifests an absolute consciousness 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 213 


that he himself is the last court of appeal. (See Saint 
Matt. 5. 18-39 and Saint John 14. 2, 3.) 

6. Jesus regards himself as the supreme Master of men. 
As supreme Master he demands obedience. ‘And why 
call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I 
say?’’ (Saint Luke 6. 46; compare with Saint John 21. 
22.) 

7. As a further revelation of the consciousness of 
mastership over men, notice our Lord’s claim upon their 
love. “He that loveth father or mother more than me 
is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter 
more than me is not worthy of me”’ (Saint Matt. 10. 37; 
and, as a significant background, read the passage in 
Saint Matt. 22. 37-39). 

8. In relation to man’s spiritual needs, Jesus regards 
himself as the ultimate and perfect supply. “Jesus 
answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of 
this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the 
water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of 
water springing up unto eternal life” (Saint John 4. 13, 
14; compare with Saint John tro. Io). 

g. Jesus regards himself as the Race-Man. Of all the 
discussions bearing upon the term “Son of man,’’ in its 
meaning as used by our Lord, the discussion by Professor 
Stevens, in his Theology of the New Testament, seems to 
me to be the most nearly satisfactory. But, for my 
purpose, this term “Son of man”’ has no large importance; 
and for the sufficient reason that we already have, in the 
four facts noted in this connection, a clear revelation of 
our Saviour’s consciousness of his peculiar relation to 
men. When we try to state this peculiar relation in a 
compact word we can do no better than to say that Jesus 
Christ is conscious of being the Race-Man. On the one 
side, he owns the race. It is his race in such a final way 


214 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


that he has the absolute right to make his claim upon 
all men. No man, high or low, rich or poor, this or that, 
can escape him. In his consciousness there is a great 
racial grasp. And, then, on the other hand, he belongs 
to the whole race. Every man has a property in him. 
It is his supreme business to live with men and for men, 
all men. Therefore, there is a fitness in his redemptive 
work. It is not extraneous. It does not come at men 
from the outside. Our Saviour is not a stranger. 

His Relation to the Moral Law. Now, holding fast to 
what we have, namely, our Lord’s consciousness of the 
redemptive purpose of his mission and of his peculiar 
relation to mankind, it becomes exceedingly important 
to discover the content of his moral consciousness. How 
was he, in consciousness, related to the moral law under 
which man must be redeemed, if redeemed at all? 

10. The first thing to be marked here is that Jesus 
Christ never manifested any consciousness of being himself 
a sinner. This point does not in the least depend upon 
the minute exegesis of such a text as that in Saint John’s 
gospel (8. 46), where our Lord exclaims, ‘‘ Which of you 
convicteth me of sin?’ It isa matter of personal bearing, 
Read the record in the gospels from end to end, and you 
become positive that Jesus felt perfectly free from sin. 

11. Even as the separate texts are overarched by the 
general bearing of Jesus, so his general bearing is over- 
arched by the one fact that he claimed to have the moral 
authority to forgive sin. “But that ye may know that 
the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins” 
(Saint Matt. 9. 6; read the entire passage in Saint Mark 
2. 5-12). 

12. But all—the separate texts, the general bearing, 
and the forgiveness of sin—are overarched by our Lord’s 
assertion that he alone is to be the final Judge of men. 
“For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 215 


given all judgment unto the Son” (Saint John 5. 22). 
“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father 
with his angels; and then shall he render unto every 
man according to his deeds’”’ (Saint Matt. 16. 27). 

With these three cumulative points before us, we can- 
not say less than this: In his mission of redemption 
Jesus Christ regarded himself as the embodiment of the 
moral perfection and authority of God’s absolute law. 
His bearing and utterance were precisely as if in conscious- 
ness he felt that he himself and the moral law were 
interchangeable equivalents. 

His Relation to God. This surprising discovery of the 
content of our Lord’s moral consciousness leads us to 
dare to ask a most crucial question: Did the conscious- 
ness of Jesus, in carrying out his mission of redemption, 
affirm any peculiar relation to God? If so, what was 
that relation? 

13. Jesus regards himself as alone able to understand 
God the Father and to revealhim. ‘All things have been 
delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth 
the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the 
Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
willeth to reveal him” (Saint Matt. 11. 27). 

14. Jesus regards himself as the one and only way unto 
God the Father. ‘‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, 
and the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the 
Father, but by me” (Saint John 14. 6). 

15. Jesus regards himself as so essentially one with 
the Father (éy® xai 6 narqp & éopev) that having seen 
Jesus one hath seen the Father. ‘‘Jesus saith unto 
him, Have I been so long time with you, and dost 
thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the 
Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, 
and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I 


216 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me 
doeth his works” (Saint John 14. 9, 10; 10. 25-33). The 
Ritschlian view that Christ was conscious of merely an 
ethical union with God, an agreement with God in moral 
purpose, seems to me to be superficial even as isolated 
exegesis. But we cannot rest in any isolated exegesis, 
the passage must be treated in harmony with all the 
other claims of Jesus. So treated, it is evident that 
Jesus held in consciousness such a fundamental relation 
to God the Father as to be able to be, in the redemptive 
work, a complete equivalent of the Father’s authority 
and nature. Jesus does not regard himself as a mere 
delegate from God, but as the actual presence of God to 
accomplish their salvation. 

16. In Christ’s estimate the Holy Spirit is peculiarly 
related both to our Lord’s redemptive ministry and to 
our Lord himself. Not only does the Holy Spirit wait 
for the end of that ministry, but he is to be sent by Jesus 
himself. ‘Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is ex- 
pedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, 
the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I 
will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, 
will convict the world in respect of sin, and of 
righteousness, and of judgment” (Saint John 16; read 
the entire chapter). Godet’s comment here is so pen- 
etrating that I will quote it: “His departure was the 
condition of his restoration to his divine state, and this 
would enable him to send the Holy Spirit. It is the 
same idea which we meet with in 7. 39: ‘The Spirit was 
not yet; because Jesus was not yet glorified.’ That Jesus 
might send the Spirit, he must possess him as his own 
personal life, and that as man, since it is to men that he 
is to impart him.”’ This, though, is deeper than we now 
need to go. What I wish to emphasize is that Jesus 
Christ, while on the earth, working out his redemptive 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 217 


plan, was conscious of being the condition of the redemp- 
tional activity of the Holy Spirit and also of being the 
personal authority to start that activity. 

His Consciousness After His Resurrection. 

17. We have caught glimpses of our Saviour’s re- 
demptional consciousness, here and there, during. his 
active ministry; but the inquiry naturally arises, After 
his resurrection, does he manifest the same consciousness, 
the same conception of himself? ‘And when they saw 
him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus 
came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority 
hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye 
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of 
the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you 
always, even unto the end of the world’”’ (Saint Matt. 28. 
17-20; compare with Saint Mark 16. 14-16; also with 
Saint Luke 24. 44-49; also with Acts 1. 6-8). The 
rationalistic contention that this passage reveals an 
altogether different attitude from that of Jesus before 
his crucifixion is such a contention as we would expect 
from men who have never caught the spirit and pro- 
gressive method in our Lord’s mission of redemption. 
But I am quite sure that to the real Christian conscious- 
ness this most extraordinary passage effectually appeals 
as an indorsement, in succinct expression, of the same 
redemptional consciousness which our Saviour had during 
his active ministry. The passage is neither more nor less 
than the conjoining, for the establishment and future 
work of the Christian church, of all the tremendous 
claims which our Lord had ever made. 

By an examination of our Lord’s miracles and of his 
conception of his relation to Old Testament prophecy we 
could enlarge our study of his consciousness; but we have 


218 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


done enough to show three things: First, he regarded 
himself as on a mission of redemption; second, this mission 
to be accomplished by self-sacrifice culminating in his 
death; third, this sacrifice having peculiar significance 
from his racial relation to man, from his self-identification 
with the moral law, and from his self-identification with 
God. As the Son of God, as the embodiment of all moral 
concern, and as the Race-Man, he, having sacrificed his 
original estate, will now die that he may redeem mankind 
—that is the intrinsic veinage of the self-consciousness of 
Jesus Christ. 


THE APOSTOLIC CONSCIOUSNESS 

For our limited plan it is not necessary to consider 
every expression in the New Testament of the apostolic 
mind; it is quite sufficient to note the beginning and then 
the fullness of the consciousness. In each instance, the 
question would be, When this apostle became conscious 
of self, what were the important, the characteristic 
things, he held? Or, more simply, what were his 
primary convictions? 

The First Trace in Saint Peter. In looking at Saint 
Peter in the book of Acts, we should not expect too much. 
He was a great apostle, but he was in a fever. He had 
been well-nigh overwhelmed by the rush of mighty events 
—the trial and death of Jesus, the resurrection, the 
appearance of Christ, the ascension, the “ tongues parting 
asunder, like as of fire,” on the day of Pentecost. His 
very boldness is a hot, violent thing almost certain to 
obscure the inner vision; and no utterance of his at this 
time is likely to contribute much to Christian doctrine. 
And yet for this very reason, for the very reason that he 
is in such agitation, his consciousness is to us of large 
worth. For we want to find out the characteristic inner 
seizures of an apostle in all the upheaval at the very 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 219 


beginning of the Christian church. The points which 
stand out clearly are these: 

1. While Saint Peter blamed the Jews, he regarded 
the crucifixion of Christ as no accident, but a part of the 
divine plan. ‘Being delivered up by the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God”’ (Acts 2. 23). “But 
the things which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the 
prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled”’ 
C728): 

2. While Jesus is “‘a man approved of God” (2. 22), 
yet Saint Peter sees in Christ’s name the authority, the 
divine power, the dynamic finality of redemption from 
sin. ‘And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be 
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the 
' gift of the Holy Spirit” (2. 38). ‘And in none other is 
there salvation: for neither is there any other name under 
heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be 
saved” (4. 12). 

3. But there is more. In Saint Peter’s consciousness 
there is more than that Jesus Christ is a man approved 
of God and chosen beforehand to suffer and die as the 
one potent means for the salvation of men. Saint Peter 
calls Jesus ‘‘the Prince of Life” (3. 15). Also he calls 
him “both Lord and Christ” (2. 36). Saint Peter works 
miracles only in Christ’s name. “In the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, walk” (3. 6). The gift of the Holy 
Spirit he connects with the name of Christ (2. 38, already 
quoted). And, finally, Saint Peter thinks of Jesus as 
exalted by the right hand of God: “Him did God exalt 
with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give 
repentance to Israel, and remission of sins’’ (5. 31; 2. 3 3). 

Not for a moment would we assert that we find in these 
three points any more than a moiety of what we found in 
the consciousness of our Lord. But is it not clear that 


220 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


we have here the beginning of the same thing? Was Saint 
Peter not beginning to realize that Christ’s mission was 
the redemption of man by self-sacrifice, culminating in 
death; and that this sacrifice was not made by a mere 
man, but by one peculiarly related to men and to right- 
eousness and to God? May we not say that Saint Peter’s 
consciousness was, at least in prophetic outline, a copy 
of his Master’s consciousness? 

The Fullness in Saint Fohn. Leaving out Saint Paul, 
whom I wish to reserve for our discussion of the atone- 
ment, the fullness of the apostolic consciousness is best 
seenin Saint John. And if we take Saint John as revealed 
in the book of the Revelation we find a certain maturity, a 
certain richness and ripeness in Christian conviction, not 
to be found in any other apostolic writing. The book of 
Acts might be called the spring of apostolic experience, — 
Saint Paul’s epistles the summer, and the book of the 
Revelation the autumn—when ripe fruits drop as “gentle 
airs come by.” I will make a brief analysis of Saint 
John’s doctrine of the Lamb of God. 

The Lamb Slain. The figure of the Lamb was not, 
as many seem to think, selected mainly to suggest the 
gentleness of Christ. Indeed, this conception of a gentle 
Christ is, just now, a reality so overemphasized as to be 
almost lifted into unreality. Saint John is thinking, not 
so much of a lamb, as of a lamb slain. ‘And I saw-in 
the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, 
and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though 
it had been slain’’ (Rev. 5. 6). 

The Blood of the Lamb. The conception of the Lamb 
slain is involved also in the expression ‘‘the blood of the 
Lamb’’; but ‘“‘the blood of the Lamb’”’ is most definitely 
related to the salvation of men from sin. Such a con- 
nection is established even in the first chapter—‘‘ Unto 
him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 221 


blood” (z. 5). And then of those before God in white 
robes the elder says: ‘These are they that come out of 
the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and 
made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7. 14). 
And speaking of the conquest over ‘“‘the accuser of our 
brethren,” Saint John says: “And they overcame him 
because of the blood of the Lamb” (12. 11). 

The Lamb and the Book. As to the meaning of this 
“book written within and on the back, close sealed with 
seven seals’’ (5. 1), many opinions have been given; but, 
with any possible view, Saint John is paying an extra- 
ordinary tribute to the power of the Lamb. He alone 
can open the peculiar book. And I think we may safely 
say more, even that Saint John himself furnishes the 
clue to his meaning. A little later, in the ninth verse of 
this fifth chapter, we read: ‘‘And they sing a new song, 
saying, Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open 
the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and didst purchase 
unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, 
and people, and nation.’”’ This, to me, means, when put 
into simple phrase, that the Lamb of God alone has power 
to save men, and he has this power because he died for 
their sins. That is, the strange, difficult book was the 
problem of human redemption. And, further, the elab- 
orate description of the book is but a figurative way of 
saying that the moral difficulties of redemption were 
almost insuperable. In fact, all through Saint John’s 
peculiar imagery, there is a most intense moral em- 
phasis. His throne of God is nothing whatever but the 
moral law. 

The Lamb and the Redeemed. The first thing to note 
as to the redeemed is that they do not come out of the 
twelve tribes alone. ‘After these things I saw, and 
behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, 
out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and 


222 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


tongues, standing before the throne ana before the 
Lamb” (7. 9). Thus, redemption is lifted out of ethnic 
locality and given a racial extent. Again, these re- 
deemed men are in a relation of loyalty and fellowship 
with the Lamb. ‘These are they that follow the Lamb 
whithersoever he goeth”’ (14. 4). And, again and again, 
we have the idea that the redeemed absolutely belong to 
the Lamb by purchase. They ‘‘were purchased from 
among men” (14. 4, etc.). 

The Lamb and the Throne of God. In almost every 
part of the entire book the Lamb sustains a peculiar 
relation to the enthroned God. And the emphasis of 
this peculiar relation culminates in the ascription of 
worship “unto him that sitteth on the throne and unto 
the Lamb”’: “And every created thing which is in the 
heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on 
the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying, 
Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, 
be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the 
dominion, for ever and ever’’ (5. 13). 

If now we are willing to make due allowance for the 
difference in style of speech, I am sure that we can see in 
this doctrine of the slain Lamb an expression of essentially 
the same redemptional consciousness which was manifest 
in the life and sayings of our Lord. To Saint John our 
Lord’s mission was redemption; this redemption was 
accomplished by a sacrificial death; our Lord’s relation to 
men, in this redemption, was as wide as the human race 
itself; and the redeemed will treat their Redeemer with 
precisely that worship which they will pay to God upon 
his throne. At the end of this short study of the apos- 
tolic consciousness the one point which I most care to 
lift up is that the apostles, from first to last, did not 
look upon Jesus mainly as their teacher, their master, but 
rather as their Saviour from sin; and because he was 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 223 


their Saviour their natural tendency was to exalt him 
into the moral power and absolute nature of God himself. 
They did not get at the deity of Christ philosophically, 
but redemptionally. They did not even try to explain 
redemption theologically by calling Christ divine. It 
was much more simple. Jesus Christ had saved them 
from sin, and in all the glory of the new life in Christ 
their whole being rushed out to him as to their God. 
This explains why we have no more in the apostolic utter- 
ance; and it also explains why we have so much. The 
absolute deity of our Lord is surely in the message of the 
apostles, but it is in that message not as systematic 
theology, but as a redemptional experience. 


THE PROBLEM OF THE EARLY CHURCH 


Now let us come down to the beginning of the fourth 
century and see if we can make real to our minds the 
Christian problem. At the very start we need to re- 
member that the Christian church had inherited the rigid 
monotheism of the Old Testament. That ‘“‘ Jehovah our 
God is one Jehovah” (Deut. 6. 4) was to the typical 
Christian as authoritative as ever it was to any man of 
Israel. Indeed, it can be shown that a basal monothe- 
istic conception runs all through not only the writings 
of the Greek fathers, but also the New Testament itself. 
Profoundly considered, the New Testament is as mono- 
theistic as is the Old Testament. Therefore, with such a 
didactic inheritance, the early Christian church, to exalt 
Jesus Christ into the Godhead, must have had a motive 
forceful enough to overcome a most positive natural in- 
clination. Let us, then, instantly banish from our minds 
the notion that we are dealing with men who are pre- 
occupied with a doctrinal readiness to deify Jesus 
Christ. 

But with this monotheism they had inherited pre- 


224 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


cisely what we have been considering, that is, our Lord’s 
conception of his own mission in its aim and method and 
relations; and this conception essentially repeated in the 
manifest consciousness of the inspired apostles. Of course, 
the apostles could not, for the leaders of the early church, 
add anything to the authority of their Lord; but the apos- 
tolic teaching could and did make them more sure in their 
interpretation of the real meaning of Christ's life and 
words. Had no apostle ever reaffirmed, so to speak, the 
consciousness of Christ, the psychological situation, and 
the practical situation, would have been somewhat 
different for the early church. It would have been 
Martin Luther’s situation, only many times more per- 
plexing. 

Their relation to the Scripture was, however, not 
artificial, but dynamic. It was mediated through their 
own Christian consciousness. And their Christian con- 
sciousness was resultant from their Christian experience. 
And the center of their Christian experience was a vital 
relation to their risen Redeemer. When now we search 
out their own personal bearing, in this vital relation to 
Jesus, we find it to be not merely one of faith, but also 
one of actual worship. There can be no question about 
this. Worship of Christ was so common to the Christian 
daily habit of life that Tertullian, in writing his Apology, 
deems it necessary to defend the practice (xxi). Canon 
Bright says: ‘All through the antenicene period, 
Christians who knew as well as any Jew could have told 
them that the Divine Unity was the root-truth of true 
religion, did one thing which spoke decisively as to the 
purport of their creed. With equal deliberation and 
fervor, habitually and as a matter of course, throughout 
life and in the face of death, clergy and people, learned 
and unlearned, alike and together, worshiped the crucified, 
risen, and glorified Jesus as their Lord and their God.” 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 225 


“The sea was heaving as if in the hours before a 
storm!’’ And when the storm burst, it was, for the 
Christian faith, the most crucial moment in the entire 
history of the church. Every Christian man should 
be trained to understand the conflict with Arianism just 
as every citizen of the republic should be trained to 
understand the Declaration of Independence. Allow me 
to lift the struggle out of its confusing nomenclature. 
Essentially the situation was this: First, the one nerve 
of the whole matter is that these Christian men had been 
saved from sin. Seize that fact with all your strength, 
or you will never comprehend this mighty battle. Sec- 
ond, this salvation from sin they absolutely associated 
with Jesus Christ and his atonement. Third, they had 
inherited their Saviour’s own interpretation of the 
relation existing between his redemptive work and the 
intrinsic peculiarity of his person. Fourth, this con- 
sciousness of our Lord they found essentially repeated in 
the whole body of apostolic experience, the repetition 
gaining in force and completeness from first to last. 
Fifth, this inheritance from Christ and his apostles 
exactly fitted and satisfied their own Christian conscious- 
mess which was resultant from their own Christian 
experience. Sixth, out of this combination of features 
they had gained a conception of Christ which they spon- 
taneously expressed by worshiping him even as they wor- 
shiped God. This is a fair practical statement of the 
inner situation; and it all can be gathered up into a 
sentence: While up to this time they had no metaphysical 
view (the most of them) of Jesus Christ, yet, in their 
redemptional experience, they so regarded him that their 
hearts went out to him in full worship. Now, Arianism 
offered to these redeemed men, worshiping Christ—what? 
A creature—a being who actually had commenced to live; 
a being made by a swift, potent volition of Almighty God; 





226 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


a being that could be duplicated—yes, duplicated as 
often as God might wish to will it—duplicated as easily 
as archangels or men or planets can be duplicated— 
Arianism offered to these redeemed men worshiping 
Christ that creature! Surely they had to reject the offer. 
In the name of all they had inherited, and all they had 
experienced, and all they had done, they had to reject 
the offer. Their rejection of all creaturehood in Christ 
was not only a redemptional consistency, but also a 
redemptional necessity. It was not so much their 
theology which was in danger as their Christian experience 
itself. Indeed, I myself believe that had Arianism been 
triumphant the Christian faith would have been swept 
entirely away. Our experience with later depreciations 
of our Lord’s person indicates what would have taken 
place on a large scale, namely, the gradual devitalization 
of personal experience in Christ, and then, with this 
devitalization, the rapid yielding to rationalistic demand 
until every Christian doctrine was emptied of its original 
meaning. 

Now we can understand why the Athanasians were 
obliged to go into metaphysics. The Arian offer was 
too fundamental in its relations, and too subtle in its 
statements, and too ingenious in its scriptural defense, 
to be met on the surface in a practical way. There is 
nothing so slippery as a heresy trying to enter the church. 
To check it, the practical mind and the Scripture method 
have ever been completely helpless. There is not one 
Christian truth which can be fully defended against her- 
esy, save by using more or less of metaphysics, for every 
final meaning lies deep in metaphysics. Every Arian 
contention had an important metaphysical implication. 
The very idea of creaturehood itself is at last a metaphys- 
ical idea. 

Let us, then, come at the pith of this metaphysical 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 227 


work of the Athanasians, and try to make it clear to our 
modern way of thinking. The pith of the matter is in 
these few words: “Very God of very God, begotten; not 
made, being of one substance with the Father.” The Greek 
reads thus: Ocdv GAnOivov éx Ocov dAnOvov, yevynbévra, ob Ton- 
Gévra, dwoovotov TG matpi. The Latin reads thus: Deum ve- 
rum de Deo vero, natum, non factum, unius substantiae cum 
Patre. To bring out the significance of these words, I will 
make a somewhat arbitrary analysis of them. There are 
two statements, and then each statement is briefly ex- 
plained bya peculiar phrase. The first statement is that 
Jesus Christ is “very God,” or, as a theologian to-day 
would say, absolutely God. The explanation of this first 
statement is in the peculiar phrase “‘ being of one substance 
with the Father.’’ Upon this term substance a surprising 
amount of learned research has been expended with a 
small amount of philosophical insight. The instant 
meaning of the word is of little concern, for it was nothing 
but a weapon, and an accidental weapon at that, to 
protect an underlying and extremely important idea, 
namely, that the Father and the Son are what they are 
by means of one and the same organism; that they are, 
therefore, structurally necessary to each other, so that 
neither can exist at all without the other. 

The second statement, indicating the method of this 
organic divine life, is that Jesus Christ, the Son, is “of 
very God.’”’ The explanation of this second statement 
is in the peculiar phrase “begotten, not made.’ This 
explanation is really twofold: First, there is the term 
“begotten,” which evidently had come from Saint John’s 
“only begotten.’’ (See Saint John’s gospel 1. 14, 18; 
and 3. 16; and 1 John 4. 9.) Then this term is itself 
further and negatively explained by the expression “not 
made.’’ As if they had said: Jesus Christ is of God, but 
not in the sense that a creature is of God by optional 


228 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


creation. Christ is begotten, but not made. Here again 
they were compelled to use the weapon at hand, but it 
is plain enough what they meant. They were trying to 
say that our Lord has a derived being, but the derivation 
is necessary and without beginning and without resultant 
inferiority. The Father is the causal ground of the Son’s 
existence, but the Father does not choose to will the Son 
into existence; he must eternally do so by the very process 
of his own eternal life. This causing the existence of the 
Son is the method by which the Father zs the Father, 
and without being the Father he could not exist at all. 
It is loose speech to call this process of begetting the Son 
creation, I think; but we may do so, if we are only careful 
to insist that it is necessary and eternal creation. Many 
times, and even in recent years, we have been told that 
this eternal generation, or begetting, of the Son of God 
is empty verbiage, a sort of theological rhetoric, incapable 
of conception by the human mind. I entirely fail to 
respond to the objection; and I fail to comprehend how 
any thinking man, familiar with the struggle over the 
Athanasian contention, can ever have even the slightest 
difficulty in clearly grasping the meaning of Athanasius. 
Surely we may conceive of two real persons; both of them 
without beginning; both of them alike in attributes, so 
that neither one of them is inferior to the other; and yet 
one of them is the cause, furnishes the power by which 
the other one has all his life; and then we may conceive 
that the causal person lives only by giving just as the 
caused person lives only by receiving; and thus they exist 
by means of one and the same organism. And, now that 
I am at the point, I will dare to affirm that this eternal 
generation of the Son is not only conceivable, it is also 
one of the most fruitful conceptions in all Christian 
thinking. It helps us to understand all those sayings of 
Christ where, at one stroke, he insists upon both his 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 220 


equality with the Father and his dependence upon the 
Father, for these sayings reach widely beyond our 
Saviour’s temporary condition of humiliation. And not 
only this, the Athanasian conception helps us to enter 
into the very atmosphere of the plan of redemption. 
Devotionally, to a Christian man, this supreme Christian 
creed is of more worth than The Imitation of Christ. 

The problem of the early church, given in a word, was 
to protect, under perilous attack, the whole significance 
of their redemptional experience in Jesus Christ. And 
they did this, in full consistency with all their Christian 
opinions, by maintaining that our Redeemer, Jesus 
Christ, is, in his own person, eternally, necessarily, and 
absolutely—God. It was the greatest piece of work ever 
done by uninspired men. 


THE MODERN CHRISTOLOGICAL PERIL 


The Arians are gone, but their equivalent is still here. 
The modern agnostic movement in Christology I can but 
regard as a most serious attack upon the deity of our 
Lord, and, through that, upon the entire significance of 
redemption. And the extreme peril of the attack lies 
in two things: First, that our leaders in the practical 
work of the church are so occupied, so busy with large 
affairs, that they do not realize the nature of the attack; 
and, second, that some of our greatest teachers and 
writers have honestly made up their minds, under the 
pressure of the new demands of science, that the old 
Christology is now untenable, even if it ever had any 
reality to the Christian mind. It is one of those critical 
periods when a small man can be pardoned for wishing 
there were some process by which he could for a few 
years become Athanasius. 

Fairly to bring before you this agnosticism in Chris- 
tology, I will quote a passage from an editorial in one of 


230 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


our influential, nonsectarian, religious journals, a passage 
which I have selected out of a large number of statements 
equally pertinent, because it is perfectly steeped in genu- 
ine spiritual quality. That is, I want you to see the 
agnostic bearing in its loftiest spiritual mood. The 
passage reads as follows: “I will not and I cannot enter 
into polemical discussions about him [Christ]; I will not 
and I cannot enter into metaphysical analysis of him. I 
have no capacity to define with fine phrases his relation 
to the Infinite and the Eternal God, and I have no wish 
to do so. I rejoice in the mysteries of his being which I 
cannot solve. But to be like Jesus Christ is my deepest 
and sincerest desire, to have some share in the work he is 
doing is my supremest ambition; in his teaching I find 
the sum of all spiritual truth, in his spirit the secret of all 
life, and in himself an object of love and reverence such 
that all I have is too little to give to him. If I try to 
put this experience into a form of words, I can find no 
better phrase than to say that I believe that the Eternal 
Presence, whom no one can see or comprehend, manifested 
himself in this one human life that all might see and com- 
prehend him, and that through him all might come to be 
sharers of his life and conformed to his image”’ [italics mine]. 
Any student remembering Professor Ritschl’s remarkable 
chapter on ‘The Doctrine of Christ’s Person and Life- 
work” will note at once that in this editorial utterance 
we have an expression of one side of the Ritschlian view 
of ‘‘the Godhead of Christ.’’ The Ritschlian view, very 
briefly stated, is this: Christ is divine in the sense that he 
has the value of God in the Christian experience. When 
we analyze this value we find two things, namely, that 
Jesus is ‘the manifest type of spiritual lordship over the 
world’’ and ‘“‘the perfect revealer of God.’’ That is, 
we ascribe deity to Christ because he shows us how to 
master the world and because he is to us in our religious 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 231 


experience a perfect revelation of God. Concerning the 
last point Ritschl says: ‘‘ As Bearer of the perfect revela- 
tion, Christ is given us that we may believe on him. 
When we do believe on him, we find him to be the Re- 
vealer of God.” But when we ask for more, when we 
ask what Christ really is in fundamental relation to God 
the Father, or what Christ is in himself, say, whether he 
is a creature or not, then Professor Ritschl gives us such 
an agnostic answer as we already have in the editorial 
quoted. It is true that the Ritschlian answer has, to 
many, a profounder appearance because it is related by 
manipulation to the Kantian theory of knowledge. But 
this Kantian theory of knowledge actually adds an extra 
burden to the agnostic position, for the theory is weak 
in itself. To make hiatus between the action of a thing 
and the thing in itself is nothing but gratuity in philoso- 
phy. It is much more reasonable to hold that when we 
have the work of a thing we have the thing at work. In 
spite of the great name of Kant behind it, this positing a 
ground of action which is not actually in the action is a 
purely arbitrary performance. To meet the Ritschlian 
Christology from the standpoint of a theory of knowledge, 
I would contend that if Jesus Christ has for men the com- 
plete value of God, either he must be a mere automaton, 
a projected theophany, or he must be God himself. He 
could not be a free man, he could not bea creature, for no 
creature, however inspired, however helped, can remain 
in self-consciousness and act beyond the range of the 
finite. Either the free personality of Jesus must be given 
up or his absolute Godhead must be maintained. 

But my main concern is not with the Ritschlian theory 
of knowledge, nor even with the Ritschlian theology by 
itself, but only with this agnostic Christology, however 
and wherever manifest. And I am concerned with this 
agnostic Christology, not as a scientific theologian, look- 


232 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ing at its bearing upon this or that speculation in a system 
of doctrine, but as an ordinary Christian man, looking 
at its bearing upon the Christian experience in redemption. 
You cannot transform our Saviour into an interrogative 
and not do violence to the whole extent of the redemp- 
tional consciousness, from that of the man who has 
found forgiveness and peace in Christ to-day, back 
through the Christian centuries, back through the apos- 
tles, to our Lord’s own conception of his mission and his 
person. This, though, is not all. This agnosticism tends 
to empty the atonement for sin of its profoundest ethical 
and sacrificial meaning. This meaning is deeper than 
any of our theories, and more important than all our 
theories—it is the root-peculiarity of the Christian faith— 
and it is this: God, in his awful holiness, so loved men 
that he gave, out of his own being, his eternal, uncreated 
Son to save them from sin unto everlasting life. There- 
fore, our salvation has come only by the most costly 
self-sacrifice on the part of God the Father. And in this 
expensive self-sacrifice in the name of moral regard and 
love lies the ethical quality as well as the evidence of 
infinite love. But once hold that Jesus Christ was a 
creature, and you have thrown all this holy costliness 
away. And this agnosticism says that it cannot tell 
whether Christ was a creature or not. We must have a 
Christology that can tell, or violate, and then vitiate, the 
Christian experience in redemption. It is not systematic 
theology, but the vitality of the Christian life, which ts at 
stake. 


XVII. THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD 


THE central idea in the doctrine of the Incarnation is 
this: The Son of God given as man, for the redemption of 
man, ‘This means that we are to start, not, as many 
theologians do, with the man Jesus, but with the Son of 
God living personally, self-consciously, in the glory of 
the Godhead. Jesus Christ is God become man, and not 
man become God. We must instantly reject this view 
of a very peculiar man, or even of a miraculous man, 
gradually coming nearer and nearer to God, gradually 
being more and more filled with divine potency, gradually 
being more and more conjoined with God, until at last 
Christ is very God (“ganz und schlechthin Gott’”’—Rothe). 
“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and 
we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from 
the Father), full of grace and truth” (Saint John 1. 14). 

In recent years the question of the virgin birth has 
become one of “the points of fire” in theological dis- 
cussion; and there are some who hold the miracle still, 
as a veritable New Testament teaching, and yet say it is 
“only a minor matter connected with the Incarnation 
and should have a subordinate place in the doctrine.” 
I do not think that this apologetic treatment is wise ; nor 
do I think that it represents the real Christian conscious- 
ness concerning the matter. It is true that the miracle 
of the virgin birth is not necessary, philosophically speak- 
ing, to the accomplishment of the Incarnation. There 
are several other conceivable ways by which the Son of 
God might have become truly man. The virgin birth is 
also entirely unessential (many famous theologians have 
taught the contrary, however) in securing our Lord’s 


234 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


freedom from depravity. Becoming man in anyway 
whatsoever, our Saviour would have been able to organize 
his whole being about his moral ideal, with the supreme 
motive of moral love, and the real companionship with 
God his Father. All this we may admit; but the virgin 
birth, nevertheless, belongs to the process of the Incarna- 
tion by the most inherent fitness. To have the stupendous 
miracle of the Incarnation itself actualized by a natural 
method would be as much out of place as to have the sun 
rise without manifesting its nature in heat and light. 
The nature of the miracle should come out; the method 
should express the inner nature of the event. Not only 
so, but the virgin birth is in fitness with the great miracles 
at the close of our Lord’s earthly ministry, the resurrec- 
tion and the ascension. The profoundest Christian con- 
sciousness will, Iam very certain, more and more intensely 
do two things, namely, banish all miracle after the 
apostolic period, and demand every biblical miracle which 
tends to emphasize the extraordinary ethical meaning 
of our Redeemer’s sacrifice for sin. The question for 
Christian men is not a scientific question in the least, but 
only a question of moral emphasis, a question of redemp- 
tional ethics. We will at last have everything which 
renders more real, more glorious, our salvation through 
the Incarnation and Death of our Lord. 

Although we start with the preéxistent Son of God, yet 
as a result of the virgin birth we come in our thinking to 
the proper manhood of Christ. But this is the precise 
point where we must begin to avoid even the faintest 
color of humanitarian thinking. We should not allow 
even the chill of the climate of that thinking to penetrate 
our hearts. The humanitarian conception of Jesus 
Christ is wrong, not only in theory, but in feeling also. 
And the feeling is more poisonous than the theory. The 
manhood of Christ is not that of a human person. All 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 235 


the personality of our Lord he brought with him into 
human existence. He takes on an addition, a human 
addition, to his individuality, that is all. The manhood 
is ever impersonal, never anything but a lower coefficient 
for the abiding person of the Son of God. The Christian 
value of this view is very great, for it means that.the 
human nature of our Lord will never come to personal 
emphasis, never come to triumph, so to speak, but will 
always stand out for the Redeemed as evidence of the 
sacrifice the Son of God made for man’s salvation. The 
dignity of man, man’s worth in God’s sight, is not to be 
found in the humanity of Christ, as if our nature were so 
wonderful that even the Infinite One might be proud to 
wear it. That method of magnifying man is humanita- 
rian and not truly Christian. No, the worth of man is to 
be found in the one fact that God cared enough about us 
to redeem us at such awful cost. Thus, the best place 
for a man to discover his inner value is not at Bethlehem, 
but at Mount Calvary. The manhood of Jesus Christ is 
ever to be regarded as a part of the humiliation of the 
Son of God. 

This prepares the way plainly to ask the question: 
Had there been no sin, and so no need of salvation, 
would the Son of God have become man? Bishop 
Martensen says: ‘‘Are we to suppose that that which is 
most glorious in the world could be reached only through 
the medium of sin? that there would have been no place 
in the human race for the glory of the Only Begotten One 
but for sin?’’ This conception of a cosmic meaning of 
the Incarnation—that the universe itself could be made 
complete only by God’s Son becoming man; that sin is 
but an accident which gave a peculiar occasion for the 
carrying out of a great original plan—is fascinating to 
every Christian theologian having Martensen’s philo- 
sophical cast of mind; but the splendid thing should, how- 


236 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ever we may cling to it in our dreams, be given up. For ’ 
it is out of emphasis with the New Testament teaching 
as to the appalling nature and consequences of sin; and 
it tends to obscure the divine costliness of redemption. 
Indeed, this cosmic conception, once fully held, would 
entirely change the Christian mood, for it would lift 
Christianity out of its tragedy by giving the Incarnation 
place among the normal and majestic processes. The 
ethical stress, the abiding moral sorrow, in the Christian 
life must be preserved in the most jealous manner. No 
grander view in philosophy shall be allowed to entice us 
away from our rejoicing sorrow in our Lord—vrejoicing, 
that he so loved us as to rescue us; sorrow, that the 
rescue cost so much—cost even the breaking up of the 
normal plan of the divine life. 

In his exceedingly helpful work, The Christian View 
of God and the World, Professor James Orr has made a 
suggestion with a purpose to mediate between the cosmic 
conception and the purely redemptional conception of 
the Incarnation. The passage reads as follows: “It 
seems to me that the real source of difficulty in thinking 
on this subject lies in not grasping with sufficient firm- 
ness the fact that, however we may distinguish from our 
human point of view between parts and aspects of the 
divine plan, God’s plan is in reality one, and it is but an 
abstract way of thinking which leads us to suppose other- 
wise. In our human way of apprehension we speak as if 
God had first one plan of creation—complete and rounded 
off in itself—in which sin was to have no place; then, 
when it was foreseen that sin would enter, another plan 
was introduced, which vitally altered and enlarged the 
former. But if we take a sufficiently high point of view 
we shall be compelled to conclude, I think, that the plan 
of the universe is one, and that, however harsh the ex- 
pression may sound, the foresight and permission of sin 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 237 


was from the first included in it.”” I do not discover any 
worth in Professor Orr’s suggestion. Under all our 
imperfect language about two divine plans, there is a 
reality which is not affected in the least by “the foresight 
and permission of sin.”” The reality is this: Sim ts con- 
trary to God’s ideal. Sin is foreseen and permitted as a 
second best rather than to have no personal creatures at 
all. The present plan, although from all eternity, is not 
what Infinite Holiness wanted, but even this plan is 
better than to have the whole universe automatic. And 
when we speak of two plans we are thinking of the actual 
plan over against the divine ideal. And, coming to the 
point at issue, the Incarnation, the real question is: 
Does the Incarnation of the Son of God belong to the 
divine ideal, does it express the normal relation of God 
to the cosmos, or is it a part of a plan which is the divine 
ideal modified by the certainty of sin and the purpose of 
redemption? My only possible answer has been given to 
this question. No Christian man should allow any touch 
of Hegelian philosophy to place the Incarnation in the 
divine ideal, in the normal life of God; for so to place it 
gives it cosmic majesty at the expense of intense redemp- 
tional import. 


THE HuMILIATION OF THE KENOSIS 


The Teaching of Saint Paul. The Scripture passages 
involved are four: Saint John’s gospel 1. 14; 2 Cor. 8.9; 
Heb. 2. 17; and Phil. 2. 5-8. Inasmuch, though, as the 
great passage in Philippians more than covers the other 
texts, it is necessary to discuss that one only. Saint 
Paul’s words are: “Have this mind in you, which was 
also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God 
(év poppy Geo indeywv), counted not the being on an 
equality with God (r6 eiva: ica 6c) a thing to be grasped, 
but emptied himself (éavrév éxévwoev), taking the form of 


238 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH - 


a servant (wop¢iv dovAov AaBav), being made in the likeness 
of men (év époripate dvOpétwv) ; and being found in fashion 
asa man (oyrparte evpebeic we dvOgwroc), he humbled himself, 
becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of 
the cross.” 

Fully to understand this passage, one first needs 
firmly to grasp the distinction between the term popgq 
and the term oyjwa, a distinction so convincingly 
brought out by Bishop Lightfoot in his commentary. 
The term poo¢q is the deeper term, meaning the essen- 
tial form of being, while the term oxja means merely 
the fashion of actual life. As a most simple illustration, 
let us take an ash tree, say a mountain ash. The popg7 
of this tree is the entire combination of essential char- 
acteristics which are necessary to constitute and manifest 
that individual thing we call a mountain ash. Take 
away even one of these characteristics, and it would not 
be a mountain ash, but something more or less different. 
Thus, the pop¢7 of the tree is the tree’s typical or 
mountain ash individuality; that is, all the peculiarity 
which constitutes the tree just that sort of an individual 
which is classified as a mountain ash. But this tree also 
has a oyja, or fashion of life, which has no necessary 
connection with the fact that it is a mountain ash. It 
is crowded, or it stands alone in the clearing; it has a 
suitable soil, or an unsuitable soil; it is bathed in the sun, 
or struggles upward in the shadow—such things make up 
the tree’s oyja. The discussion is not complete here, 
but it is full enough to suggest all that we now require. 

To Saint Paul, God himself has an essential form of 
being and a fashion of life. The divine pop¢) comprises 
all of God’s essential characteristics—all the interlaced 
attributes which are necessary to make God what he is 
and to express what he is. The divine oyjja, on the other 
hand, is but the manner of God’s life, or, as he is per- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 239 


sonal, we may say, more closely, the manner of God's 
experience. It is, I think, precisely what Saint John 
means by dééa, that “glory”’ which the Saviour had 
with the Father before the world was. If you say that 
this “glory” is also essential to God, I answer, It is 
necessary from the standpoint of inherent fitness in a 
perfect divine experience, but it is not necessary to the 
very existence of God himself. 

Keeping in mind this distinction between the essential 
form of being and the more superficial fashion of actual 
life, we are prepared to study Saint Paul’s conception of 
our Lord’s humiliation. Of what did our Saviour, the 
Son of God, empty himself? Of that thing, surely, 
which he counted not a thing to be grasped, as one holds 
fast to a great prize, whether or no, namely, the 16 
sivat toa Ge@, “the being on an equality with God.” It 
is plain enough that the Son of God, according to Saint 
Paul, gave up being on an equality with the Father. 
Right here it has been urged, however, that originally 
our Lord was on an equality with God in two ways: one 
way as to the form of being, the other way as to the 
fashion of life. If so, which of these two, the form of 
being or the fashion of life, did he give up? Or did he 
(keeping to the exegesis) give up both? Canon Gifford 
has, as far as I am concerned anyway, forever settled 
the grammatical question at this point, showing that the 
Greek cannot mean that the poed7j, or essential form of 
being, was surrendered. And we also reach the same 
conclusion under the principle of exegetical economy. 
The aim of the passage is to teach a deep humiliation; 
and to protect that aim completely we need to hold no 
more than that the fashion of life was given up. In 
other words, the ineffable glory of God’s experience is 
enough, certainly, to make a full contrast with the 
limitation of a human life ending in death upon a cross, 


240 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


And, further, this double exegetical conclusion would be 
confirmed were we to press the question into a philoso- 
phial consideration. And, last of all, we have the con- 
sciousness of our Lord, as given by Saint John, that to 
redeem men he had given up the glory of God and not 
the Godhead. 

What did our Saviour, the Son of God, take on? 
“The form of a servant.’’ The word pop¢j is again 
used here, and it means precisely what it means in the 
verse before. Our Lord took on the attributes of a serv- 
ant, or that essential form of being which pertains to the 
cramping existence of a slave. Not the accidental 
experience of a slave; but, profounder than all that, the 
very poe¢7, the essential form, the fundamental being 
of a slave. The idea here is not that Jesus Christ lived, 
suffered, died like a slave, but that he was a slave. He 
had the whole essential structure of a JdovAor. And 
now Saint Paul tells us the exact kind of a servile popd7 
which our Lord took on, the exact kind of a servant that 
he became. ‘Being made in the likeness of men.” 
The word used here is not popd7, but duotwpa, of which 
Bengel says that it “denotes a relation to other things 
of the same condition.’’ Saint Paul means that the 
Son of God became, not only a servant, but also that 
special kind of a servant which men are. He was a 
human dovdoc. It is simply saying that our Lord be- 
came a man, but saying it in such a way as to put ex- 
treme emphasis upon the servile limitations of manhood. 
Even this is not all. The humiliation is still greater. 
Our Redeemer not only became man; he also took the 
actual experience—the oyjjua—of a man; and a peculiarly 
humiliating oyja, one that ended in death, and even in 
the shame and torture of the death of the cross. “Being 
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming 
obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 241 


Analytically given, the teaching of the apostle Paul 
as to the humiliation of the kenosis is as follows: 1. Being 
originally, and continually subsisting in the essential 
form of God, our Lord had an inherent right to enjoy 
the actual manner of life, or the transcendent experience 
of God. 2. But this transcendent divine experience he 
would not cling to regardless; but gave it up as an act of 
redemptional humiliation. 3. This impoverishment of 
himself was not all. There was a second stage of humilia- 
tion in the further fact that he took on the servile essential 
form of being which men have; and then lived the actual 
lifeofaman. 4. And there was a third stage of humilia- 
tion ; for our Saviour obediently lived this actual life of a 
man down to the experience of death. 5. And this third 
stage of humiliation was emphasized by the suffering 
and ignominy of crucifixion. 

The Teaching Transferred to Systematic Theology. By 
making a few changes in the words, the Pauline con- 
ception of the kenosis can be expressed in the spirit and 
form of systematic theology: As a preéxisting person our 
Lord had two things, namely, first, a divine nature with 
all the attributes of the Godhead; second, a divine per- 
sonal experience equal to that of God the Father. The 
divine nature he did not give up, but has it eternally. 
But the divine experience he could and did give up in 
redemptional humiliation. And, further, he not only 
surrendered this divine experience, but also had, in place 
of it, a servile human experience of the most humiliating 
extreme, reaching down to death, and that death even 
by crucifixion. The possibility of this servile human 
experience was due to the fact that to his original and 
eternal divine nature he had added a human nature 
which is the nature of limitation and dependence. 

A Deeper Study of the Kenosis. If we are ever to ap- 
preciate the profound significance of our Lord’s humilia- 


242 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


tion our discussion of the kenosis must be deepened. 
This study is all the more important because the doctrine 
of the kenosis has been so manipulated as to seem to 
impair the supreme authority of Jesus Christ; indeed, has 
been so manipulated as to be made to lend itself to a 
purely humanitarian view of him. 

What do we mean by the term nature when we are 
speaking of an individual? Some writers seem to think 
that an individual’s nature is a sort of inner pulp out of 
which qualities are extracted as literally as pins are taken 
from a cushion. Toward such a crude, materialistic 
conception there is no worthy mood short of impatience. 
The fact is that there are many Christians who are 
materialistic, not as to man’s destiny, but as to man’s 
constitution. By the nature of anything I understand 
neither more nor less than that structural law by which 
the thing is precisely what it is. With Professor Bowne’s 
idea of being as active, one would say that this structural 
law is the law of the thing’s action: “‘ Now, this rule or 
law which determines the form and sequence of a thing’s 
activities represents to our thought the nature of the 
thing, or expresses its true essence.”’ This view is, I am 
convinced, the only full stopping place; but for our 
present purpose it is quite enough to say that under every 
individual existence there is a basal plan or law which 
determines all individual difference in characteristics. 
Coming again to Saint Paul, I would say that his pop¢i 
is the individuality which expresses this structural law. 
But we need to be cautious here. The pop¢7 is not a 
separated consequence. The nature, the structural law 
actually appears in the pop¢7. The common people 
come quite close to the fact when they say, “It’s the 
very nature of the thing to be that way.” 

Making now our application to the kenosis, we can 
hold that the original structural law of our Lord’s being 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 243 


is exactly that law which makes God what God is—self- 
existent in organism, omnipotent—in short, having all 
the divine attributes. Then, we can make a distinction 
between this law as actually in the attributes and the 
attributes as actually in self-consciousness. Holding fast 
to this distinction, we can, I think, at least begin to 
apprehend what took place in the Incarnation. The 
divine life as a personal experience—as “glory over glory 
streaming’’—our Lord could and did give up; but he did 
not, and he could not, give up the original structural 
law, the basal plan of his being, that intrinsic fundament 
by which alone he had the possibility of the ineffable ex- 
perience of God. Our Saviour did not achieve manhood 
by a reduction of his deity. Truly he became man, but 
after he became man he had every divine capacity, every 
divine power, every divine attribute. I well know how 
impossible it seems, at first, that a person can have a 
complete attribute and yet not seize it in selt-conscious- 
ness; but perhaps I can convince you not only that such 
is the fact, but also that the fact is quite common in 
human life. Here is a mother, for example, who has the 
full attribute of love. By this I mean that she has the 
habit of love fundamental in her womanhood. Her 
capacity for love, we will say, has been gathered up into 
a definite habit of love for her child. If you take away 
this habit of love for that child, what remains will not be 
the same individual woman at all. The attribute of love 
belongs to her very nature. Indeed, we can go further; 
for this habit of love may have been so personalized, so 
indorsed by crucial self-decision, that the mother must 
love that child forever. The habit has become a part of 
her everlasting individuality. And yet, basal as the 
attribute is, it does not always appear in the woman’s 
self-consciousness. The child may be sick unto death, 
and the mother, in sheer exhaustion, may have fallen 


244 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


asleep. Would you in such case say that she had lost 
out of her nature her love for her child? Not a man of 
you would say such a thing as that; you would say, She 
has lost the love out of her consciousness, but she has it 
still dzep in her heart. If it be urged that the mother 
is only 1 finite creature, I answer, That fact does not 
change the other one, namely, that it is possible for a 
person to have an attribute in the individual nature 
and yet not to have the attribute in self-conscious- 
ness. 

But some brother, who is thinking of the present bibli- 
cal situation, says: “You would not claim, though, that 
Jesus Christ was in his earthly life, omniscient?’” That 
is precisely what I do claim. By the attribute of omnis- 
cience I understand the inherent power for the perfect 
intuition of all reality and all possibility; and I believe 
that our Lord never for an instant even lost that struc- 
tural feature out of his being. But this does not mean 
that the attribute of omniscience was aplunge in self- 
consciousness all through that period of humiliation. As 
men, we ourselves have the inherent power for some 
intuition—for instance, that a half is less than the whole. 
Do we drop the power out of our nature every time we 
drop the intuition out of consciousness? Or take even 
acquired knowledge, as we term it—does a learned man 
need to carry in self-consciousness all the time, day and 
night, every item which he has acquired? May he not 
dare to take some rest from his terrible burden? Sir 
William Hamilton, I have read, could banish from his 
consciousness all his vast erudition, and live for hours 
at some one delicate point in philosophy ; but I have never 
read that when he came out of his mood of abstraction 
he discovered that he had lost every other truth and 
every other fact which he had ever acquired. In my own 
thinking I have considered not only omniscience, not only 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 245 


love, but also all the remaining divine attributes, and my 
firm conclusion is that our Lord emptied himself of no 
divine thing save the transcendent personal experience 
of God. 

What we have said now makes it necessary more 
closely to study our Saviour’s humanity. When we say 
that our Lord took on a human nature, precisely what 
do we mean? I mean this: He added to the original 
structural law of his being another law, namely, the law 
of a finite, dependent creature such as man is. Under 
this new law man’s limited existence could be real to him. 
Under the law of his divine nature he had an infinite in- 
tuitive knowledge of man, but he could not have human 
life as an actual personal experience. In the absolute 
God there is no normal capacity for the finite, This is 
not an imperfection in God any more than it is an im- 
perfection in the sun not to be small enough for a candle- 
stick. Or, take this illustration in suggestion: John 
Burroughs knows much more about a snow-bird than the 
“little, nervous, fastidious’”’ Junco knows about itself: 
and yet the great, kindly naturalist cannot without a 
miracle have the actual limitations and peculiar experience 
of the bird. The miracle of the Incarnation, as I lay hold 
of it, is the conjoining of two structural plans of being 
so that the incarnate Son of God has now two inherent 
capacities, one for divine experience and the other for 
human experience. For example, he can actually be a 
dovAoc in spatial limitations, as when, on the way to 
Emmaus, he “drew near, and went with them’: or he 
can override these limitations, as when he ‘‘ vanished out 
of their sight.” If it be objected that all this took place 
after his resurrection, I answer, first, that the resurrection 
simply made fitting a revelation of capacity which was in 
his nature all the time; and, second, that the same 
philosophical significance belongs to the scene on the 


246 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Mount of Transfiguration, or to the scene at the grave of 
Lazarus. Indeed, time and time again, our Saviour 
plainly showed a double capacity in nature. 

Before thoroughly testing my conception of the incar- 
nate person of the Son of God I wish to state it clearly and 
succinctly. After the Incarnation our Lord was one 
person, living under two abiding structural laws of being, 
and thus having two kinds of capacity, one kind divine, 
the other kind human. His impoverishment, therefore, 
was not as to nature but as to personal experience. And 
the degree of this impoverishment was due to his redemp- 
tional aim to live a typical human life “down to its 
dregs of death.” For to live such a life there must be 
either an erasement (as in infancy) or a modification (as 
in the temptation) of his original seizure in self-conscious- 
ness. 

The Infancy of Fesus. Under this theory that the 
kenosis applies only to self-consciousness, what is our 
conception of our Lord’s human infancy? There can be 
no severer test than to answer this question. That babe 
was not a human babe in a profound philosophical sense. 
Never under any possible conditions could that child have 
become a mere man, a human creature. We must instantly 
banish every trace of creaturehood from our conception. 
That babe was as truly God as when he was absolute in 
the glory of God the Father. The self-consciousness of 
the Son of God is now in total eclipse, but he himself 
is still organic in the Godhead and has still all the 
inherent divine capacity. Not one divine attribute 
has he lost out of his nature. And yet there is not an 
atom of docetic life here. He does not seem to be living 
the life of a human infant, he zs living it. His dependence 
upon Mary, all the first tiny outreachings of a child’s in- 
stincts, the first perceptions crawling slowly into clearness 
—all are completely real—why? Simply because the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 247 


structural law of a human being is at this time in supreme 
dominion, and there is no personal experience of his divine 
nature. 

But not yet am I fully understood—some one is think- 
ing, ““ Would you, then, say with John Milton, ‘Our Babe, 
to show his Godhead true, can in his swaddling bands 
control the damnéd crew’?” Can this infant exercise 
the prerogatives of his deity? Certainly not, for such an 
exercise of prerogative would require self-decision, and 
such self-decision would require not only a divine nature, 
but also the self-grasp and self-estimate of that nature in 
consciousness. 

Repeated Personal Choice of Humiliation. As the child 
Jesus grows the two structural coefficients of conscious- 
ness are less and less exclusive, and at last (we cannot be 
sure as to the time) Jesus Christ is in positive seizure of 
the structural law of his divine being. From this point 
on he can at will overwhelm the human side of his life. 
He has taken on the human nature for time and eternity, 
but this does not mean that he may not banish it from 
personal experience. The Son of God does not now need 
to be hungry and weary and powerless, he chooses to be so. 
Thus, there is a perpetual ethical quality in his humilia- 
tion; and just before his death this ethical quality reaches 
its loftiest point. The death of Christ is not a humiliation 
- which was chosen once for all before the Incarnation, but 
rather a humiliation chosen again and again, and at last 
chosen in finality in Gethsemane. The death of Christ 
was not necessary because he had a human nature; the 
human nature merely rendered the experience of death 
possible. The death of Christ was necessary only 
ethically, was necessary only redemptionally. Even here 
there is almost no Christian emphasis upon the fact that 
Jesus was a man. The manhood was but a means to an 
end. Because he was man he could die, and because he 


248 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


was God he would die for an atonement. Thus, that cross 
itself is perfectly saturated with moral meaning. 

The Temptation of Christ. This point of repeated per- 
sonal choice naturally brings our discussion to the ques- 
tion of our Lord’s temptation. And here we need to 
satisfy two kinds of men: First, there is the man who 
fears that we may destroy, or obscure, the reality of the 
temptation. This man says: “If you emphasize the 
Master’s Godhead so greatly, you make, as far as I can 
see, his temptation into a mere deceptive exhibition. My 
own temptations mean life or death, and never can I allow 
you to take away from me the courage which has come 
to my heart from believing that my Saviour’s victory was 
a real victory in a real conflict.’’ The feeling expressed 
here is genuinely Christian, and it may partly explain 
the extreme modern emphasis upon the true humanity 
of Christ. I only wish that the entire humanitarian 
emphasis could be explained in this manner, for an error 
which grows out of a Christian sentiment is never deeply 
dangerous; at least, never so deeply dangerous as an error 
which grows out of a rationalistic root. But the man’s 
fear is the result of a superficial understanding of the 
psychology of temptation. The reality of temptation, 
and the strength of temptation, too, depends simply upon 
the consciousness of pressure in motive. At this point the 
popular notion that a weak person has the greater temp- 
tation is altogether incorrect. The greater the person, 
the greater the clarity of self-consciousness, the greater 
the temptation, provided there is motive for wrongdoing. 
But, as I have already shown, the strength of a motive 
never can, in and of itself, mean the defeat of a free 
person. Our Lord had, at the time of his temptation, 
very great motives to keep loyal to his ideal and to his 
Father; but his human nature did furnish motives to 
violate that loyalty, and these motives were actual in 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 249 


consciousness, and were felt with all the mighty seizure 
of his personality. In short, our Lord was, in self- 
consciousness, under real pressure to reject the demand 
of his own conscience, and this made his conflict real. 

Again, there is the man who is in theoretical fear of the 
very reality which the other man dreads to lose. In 
apparent desperation, he asks: ‘‘Suppose Jesus Christ had 
yielded to the temptation, what would have become of 
the plan of salvation? You dare not teach that his 
temptation was real in the sense that he could have be- 
come a transgressor!’’ And the strange thing is that 
scholastic ingenuity has laboriously tried to meet this 
theoretical fear, when the answer is as clear as a cloudless 
sky. The premise of the whole plan of redemption ts the 
ommntscience of God. Let a man once master the signifi- 
cance of redemption in its relation to personality and 
moral character, and he must premise omniscience; he 
can no more believe that God is nescient than he can 
believe that man is coerced. It was foreknown that 
when the Son of God took on a human nature and thereby 
came to have a human probation, because of the new 
motives in consciousness, he would in his personal free- 
doin come off more than conqueror. Our Lord’s tempta- 
tion was real, his triumph was real; but the result was 
certain (not necessary), just as the final, total outcome 
of redemption is secure in the absolute omniscience of 
God. 

The Authority of fesus Christ. Some years ago I wrote, 
in another connection, these words: “Practically, the 
Incarnation has no bearing whatever upon the authority 
‘of our Lord; for he had, in his human life, instant ac- 
cess to the resources of his Father. With such resources 
at command he might choose not to know; but in such 
chosen ignorance he would never speak as if he knew. 
Surely the Son of God did not become man that he might 


250 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


make false statements.’’ Then I added a quotation from 
Canon Gore’s Bampton Lectures, which runs thus: “ Let 
it be said at once that we could not, consistently with 
faith, hesitate to accept anything on any subject that 
our Lord meant to teach us.”’ The aiin and spirit of this 
former utterance satisfy me still, but the point of view 
does not satisfy me. It is superficial. When we speak 
of the authority of Jesus Christ we are not thinking of 
his infancy, but of his manhood after he had obtained 
his redemptional self-consciousness. And, I must hold 
that this redemptional consciousness involved a self- 
grasp of his divine nature, and therefore of all his divine 
attributes, and therefore of the attribute of omniscience 
itself. So much as to theory; now let us turn to the 
gospel record. Those writers who emphasize the kenosis 
with a humanitarian intention are ever eager to call our 
attention to our Lord’s saying that even the Son knew 
not “‘of that day and hour,’’ but why do they not call our 
attention also to those places where, as in the case of 
Peter’s denial, our Lord evinced a vision of future events, 
some of these events entirely contingent upon man’s 
freedom? The gospel account, I think, does not fit into 
their theory, but does fit into mine. The record bears 
out my contention that in his manhood our Saviour had, 
and had in personal command, the attribute of omnis- 
cience, sometimes using it, and:at other times refusing 
to use it, in order that he might experience human life 
to its limit. His humanity did render it possible for him 
not to know, but his humanity did not render it impos- 
sible for him to know what he would and when he would. 
With such a conception of our Lord, I cannot admit that 
he ever mangled a fact. To a certain extent he might 
accommodate himself to the ignorance of men and to the 
imperfections of his time; to a certain extent he might 
wish to have an inner world as poverty-stricken as their 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 251 


own; to a certain extent he might wish to compel himself 
to live in the unopened scene of to-day; but it is too much 
to ask us to believe that Jesus Christ ever held a false 
opinion or spoke a false word. 

The Question of Two Wills. ‘‘ After the Saviour took 
on a human nature did he have two wills, one divine and 
the other human?” The very asking of such a question 
is indicative of crude thinking in psychology; but the 
question has some historical importance in theology, and 
is also troublesome to many students, so I will take the 
time to answer it. My answer must be: In one sense, No; 
in another sense, Yes. The will is not a thing added to a 
person, nor an item distinctive in a person, say as a main- 
spring is distinctive in a watch. When we say that a 
person has will, we mean, or should mean, nothing other 
than that he can will, that is, he has the inherent capacity 
for decision. The person is one all the time, now feeling, 
now thinking, now making volition, and now, perhaps, 
doing all three at a personal stroke. Our Lord, also, was 
not two persons, but a unitary personal being; and when 
he willed anything, he did not have, lying in behind, a 
second will like a machine’s supplemental attachment 
which is kept in reserve to do a second kind of work. 
But inasmuch as our Saviour did have, added to his 
original divine nature, a human nature; and inasmuch 
as that human nature could at times dominate his con- 
sciousness, we should, it seems to me, call that volition 
human which was made under such domination. Taken 
in this manner, I could agree with men like Canon Liddon; 
but I would, of course, need to add that there were oc- 
casions when our Lord’s decision was, exactly speaking, 
neither all divine nor all human, but rather divine-human. 
For there were occasions when both natures were explicit 
in self-consciousness. But the entire question of two 
wills, I apprehend, comes out of a blundering effort to 


252 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


protect the integrity of each nature in Christ; and I 
believe that such protection I have secured. 

The Incarnation and the Cosmic Process. The theory 
of ‘‘the double life’”’ is held by a number of Christian 
theologians who, like Bishop Martensen, do not find any 
way to provide for the ongoing of the universe without 
the constant volition of the Son of God. Thus the In- 
carnation is isolated from the cosmic process, and our 
Lord is conceived of as living two lives, one life as God 
absolute and the other life as God incarnate. At one 
and the same time he is (Proclus of Cyzicus) “in his 
mother’s arms and on the wings of the winds.’”’ Professor 
Briggs seems to hold to this view, for he says: “The 
kenosis is conceived in its relation to the work of Christ 
Jesus for man in this world. So far as the Son of God 
has other relations to the universe, the kenosis here 
mentioned does not apply. As the Mediator of the 
divine government of the universe, in whom ‘were all 
things created,’ and in whom ‘all things consist,’ he con- 
tinues in the form of God, at the same time as in the 
Incarnation he empties himself of the form of God.” I 
can accept any miracle which is essential to the Christian 
faith, but this view of a ‘‘double life”’ is to me not so 
much a Christian miracle as a psychological monstrosity. 
It is like saying that a man can be himself and his own 
elder brother, and then calling it a miracle. In fact, 
there is in the view no serious consideration of the in- 
tegrity of personality. And not only so, but I must 
regard the view as peculiarly dangerous. In consistent 
thinking, it is likely to mean no more than that Jesus 
Christ is the under and necessary agent of the Son of God, 
who remains intact in the glory of the Godhead. Held 
in this way, it would, equally with Ritschlianism, destroy 
the ethical import of the self-sacrifice in the Incarnation. 
And, equally with Ritschlianism, it would be likely, in 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 253 


unskillful hands, to drop into an unrecognized humani- 
tarianism. And not only so, but the view is not even 
required to protect the cosmic process. For the ongoing 
of the universe only two things are necessary, namely, 
the organism of the Godhead in its entire integrity, and 
this perfect divine organism brought to volitional point 
by the infinite will, The organism of the Godhead is not, 
even during our Lord’s human infancy, impaired in any 
structural way by the Incarnation ; and this perfect divine 
organism is brought to volitional point by the will of 
God the Father. In fact, the will of the Father is always 
the primary efficiency, for the Son does not originate 
anything, but merely carries out in obedient love the 
Father’s purpose. Whether the work is redemption or 
creation, the volitions of the Son are but the will of the 
Father accepted and made doubly personal in projection. 

Ajter the Ascension. Our Saviour never ceases to be 
both very God and very man. He never ceases to have 
the two structural laws fundamental in his being. But 
after the ascension his life is different from his earthly 
life. His body now is a glorified body (Phil. 3. 21), and 
his human nature is lifted out of the cramping limitation 
of the time process. And yet he has the memory of all 
the poverty and slavery and suffering of his earthly life; 
and he also has inherent capacity for all the finite ex- 
perience which redeemed men will have after their own 
glorification. Thus, in the most literal sense, our Lord is 
“one of us everlastingly.” 


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_ THE THIRD DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
be OUR LORD’S REDEMPTIVE WORK 


Crucifixus est Dei Filius; 

non pudet, quia pudendum est; 

et mortuus est Dei Filius; 

prorsus credibile est, 

quia ineptum est: 

et sepultus, resurrexit: 

certum est, quia impossibile. 
—Tertullian, De Carne Christi, v. 


XVIII. THE HOLINESS OF GOD 


In discussing the Christian religion as related to the 
moral person we glimpsed the subject of the divine 
holiness; but that glimpse is not enough for our coming 
discussion. Before trying to apprehend the supreme 
Christian doctrine of our Lord’s redemptive work we 
need clearly to understand the root of that work; and 
the root of that work is surely the holiness of God. First, 
let us turn to the Old Testament. 

The Moral Sovereignty of God. The most striking 
characteristic of the Old Testament is its perpetual 
consciousness of the fact of God. At every crisis, and 
even in every smaller turn of history, the scene is filled 
with God. You hear human voices and see human 
forms, it is true, but they merely emphasize the dom- 
inating presence of the Lord God of Israel. ‘‘God was 
the only force in the world.” But when we would get 
behind this fact of God, when we would learn the exact 
conception of God held in the Old Testament, our task 
is not so quickly performed as one might at first suppose. 
There are very dim places where hardly two Old Testa- 
ment scholars can agree as to the final meaning; and, 
what is more confusing still, there sometimes seems to 
be a shifting from one meaning to another. All this 
granted, however, yet there is a line of certainty. If we 
are willing to avoid the insignificant utterances and the 
sporadic moods, if we are anxious to catch only the 
general trend in teaching, there will sooner or later 
appear one mighty intention to urge upon men the moral 
sovereignty of God. In the Old Testament, God is, 
primarily, the Divine Ruler, who ever rules with the 


258 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


most strenuous moral regard. He does not, he will not, 
he cannot palliate sin. 

This statement, though, should not be made without 
making another, a subordinate statement. The divine 
moral regard taught in the Old Testament, although in- 
flexible, is never heartless. Again and again the ethical 
strenuousness is relieved somewhat by a note of loving- 
kindness. There are a number of passages which are to 
the point; but I wish you specially to note that “very 
surprising ancient passage’’ in the book of Exodus (34. 
5-7) where Jehovah descends in the cloud, and passes by 
before Moses, and proclaims himself as “a God merciful 
and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving- 
kindness.” But even in making this subordinate state- 
ment we must preserve the ethical environment. About 
every gracious utterance in the Old Testament there is an 
atmosphere charged with moral lightning; and sometimes 
there is more than the atmosphere, there is the actual 
flash. Indeed, the actual flash appears in the instance 
just cited, for the passage, you will remember, closes 
thus: ‘‘and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting 
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the 
children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth 
generation.’’ It has been said that such visitation is 
injustice, and so cannot be moral, cannot reveal the 
moral sovereignty of Jehovah. I admit without hesita- 
tion that such visitation is downright injustice; and were 
it in no corrective connection, were there no supplemental 
revelation, it would be clearly immoral. But in a crude 
situation, where free and sinful persons are being gradually 
trained toward a moral goal, injustice itself can be so 
related to that goal as to become urgent for it, and thus 
become moral, not in essence, but in effect. Practically 
considered, anything is moral which in its sum total of in- 
fluence tends to make men hate sin and love righteousness. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 259 


What I hold, then, is this: The cumulating sweep of 
Old Testament teaching is insistent upon, not the majesty, 
not the supremacy of God, but his moral majesty, his 
moral supremacy. And, further, that the expressions of 
divine tenderness do not weaken this moral insistence. 
And, further, that the so-called “immoralities of the 
Old Testament’’ are not like the same cruelties and 
strokes of injustice left ambiguous, or uncorrected, in 
the natural world; but are so peculiarly connected, and 
so plainly supplemented, as ultimately to exalt the 
moral sovereignty of God. 

' The Fatherhood of God. It is not worth the cost to 
take sides on the question whether or not the doctrine of 
the Fatherhood of God is taught in the Old Testament. 
Even if it is taught there the teaching is out of the main 
current, and results in a very different degree of em- 
phasis from that which we find in the New Testament. 
As Professor Sanday has said, ‘‘And yet the doctrine of 
the New Testament assumes such different proportions 
as almost to amount to a new revelation.’”’ Nor is it 
worth our time to try to analyze the New Testament 
doctrine of the divine Fatherhood to bring out exactly 
all the elements in their perfect combination. Indeed, 
after reading all the important special works on the sub- 
ject I am far from certain that such an analysis can be 
made. The one thing essential to us in this discussion, 
however, stands out very clearly in the New Testament. 
That one essential thing is this: God loves men as a perfect 
father loves his children. The last word of revelation is 
not that God is a moral sovereign, but that he is a sover- 
eign Father. Mr. Lidgett’s phrase is an exceedingly 
happy one—God is “the Father regnant.” 

There is no fundamental contradiction between the 
conception of the moral sovereignty in the Old Testa- 
ment and the conception of sovereign Fatherhood in the 


260 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


New Testament, but there is an extremely important 
difference in practical emphasis. In the one case, the 
emphasis is upon enthroned righteousness ; in the other 
case, the emphasis is upon personal love. The righteous- 
ness has in it loving-kindness, and the love is thoroughly 
moral, and yet the change in emphasis creates another 
world. It is something like the difference between a 
bright day in January and a bright day in June. Both 
days have the shining sun; but in January plants freeze 
even in the sunshine, while in June they grow and burst 
into bloom. The Old Testament is essentially a world 
of moral sovereignty, and it is frigid. The New Testa- 
ment is essentially a world of moral love, and it is creative. 

Why is the emphasis in the New Testament upon God’s 
love? There are two reasons which readily come to mind: 
1. There is a reason in what may be called the method 
in the divine pedagogy. Man being what he is, a person, 
and as he is, a sinner, the first thing necessary to be done 
for him is to place the most tremendous stress upon the 
moral fact; but this tremendous stress is sure to generate 
despair in the sinful moral person. He has the ability to 
exercise faith, I admit; but the faith exercised under such 
circumstances cannot complete the man’s religious life. 
Therefore, this extreme stress upon the moral fact is first 
modified by the Messianic expectation, and then trans- 
formed into dynamic gladness by the full revelation of the 
moral love of God in the gospel of the Son of God as 
actual Redeemer. 2. The second reason is profounder. 
The inspired authors of the New Testament are ever 
writing from the standpoint of the redemptional con- 
sciousness. And God’s primary motive in redemption 
is love. In other words, God does not make an awful 
self-sacrifice to save men because he is a moral ruler, and 
as a moral ruler is seeking to obtain subjects for his 
kingdom. The point of view is not what God needs 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 261 


rectorally, but what men can experience. Both in crea- 
tion and in salvation God is profoundly thinking of men. 
He wants them to have the possibility of moral character, 
moral service, and moral fellowship; and then to have the 
glorious experience in everlasting joy. True it is, and 
we need to repeat it again and again, that God’s total 
interest in men is a moral interest. He does not care for 
aman whether or no. But this divine moral interest is a 
vast beneficence, and is not merely an ambition to get 
a new colony of citizens. 

The Holiness of God. Our discussion thus far has been 
of some worth, and yet it has been all on the surface. 
When we ask what is meant by moral love, the expression 
which we have used so freely, we come upon a large 
problem in harmony, namely, the fundamental har- 
monization of God’s personal love for men with his 
infinite moral concern. It is easy enough to join the two 
things in a phrase, but such verbal work does not show 
the principle of harmony. And, as a matter of fact, this 
principle of harmony has not been seriously sought by 
the conventional theologian. 

The solution of our problem in harmony lies, I am 
convinced, in fully grasping the ultimate, basal meaning 
of the divine holiness. First of all, though, let us turn 
to the Word of God. The primary significance of the 
term holiness as used in the Old Testament (%3?) we 
cannot determine beyond a doubt. Several times, in 
the last fifteen years, I have been obliged to change my 
tentative opinion, until now I am more and more inclined 
to think that the word, in its earliest usage, had no dis- 
tinctly ethical content. Probably it was merely a vaguely 
reverent indication of the bare idea of Deity, and probably 
the only definite thought always in the mind was this: God 
ts unapproachable. Just as in going into the presence of 
royalty upon the throne, men would not rush at their 


262 ~ THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


king, but would drop to the earth, or by some peculiar 
gesture manifest their reverence, so in a higher degree 
they regarded their God as not easily to be approached ; 
and the term holiness was (not “‘an otiose epithet”) the 
rhetorical index of their reverent hesitation before God. 
But in the clearest personal moods there must have been 
in the mind some reason for the divine unapproachable- 
ness; and this reason would naturally correspond with 
the conception of God which was held at the time. 
Gradually, then, the holiness of God would itself come to 
mean as much as the actual conception of God could fur- 
nish of content. Then, as under the great ethical proph- 
ets, the whole view concerning Jehovah was charged with 
moral quality and with moral intensity, the holiness of 
God would, at last, mean nothing less than his absolute 
moral perfection. But, whether we accept this theory 
or another, we can safely affirm that there are lofty places 
in the Old Testament where the statement that God is 
holy certainly means that he is absolutely and inflexibly 
righteous. 

The term holiness, as used in the New Testament 
(dytoc, aytérns, aytwovrn) is one of those words taken 
over into Christian thinking and filled with a new 
spirit. Admittedly the word has a point of connection 
in the old Greek usage, but in the New Testament it 
gains ethical tone and fullness. Professor Stevens says: 
“The Christian use of the word lifted it into accord with 
the highest ethical conceptions, and gave it the idea of 
separateness from the sinful world, harmony with God, 
the absolutely Good Being, moral perfection. Thus 
dytoc is, above all things, a qualitative and ethical term.” 
The prophets of the Old Testament were, I believe, the 
teachers who made possible this final moral establish- 
ment of the idea of holiness. In the Christian view the 
holy man is the man whose entire being is organized under 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 263 


moral concern. But when the term is applied to God 
the full Christian meaning is, I think, something more. 
It is that God is both absolutely perfect and absolutely 
moral. In God there is no blemish of any kind whatso- 
ever; but this divine perfection is urged with the most 
intense ethical emphasis. God is perfect and he is 
righteous. The Christian conception starts with God’s 
perfection and culminates in his moral life. It is not that 
God is perfect because he is moral, but rather that he is 
moral because he is perfect. Thus God’s moral life obtains 
its awful unyieldingness, for it is rooted in the wholeness 
of the Infinite Being. This point I must insist upon, for 
it has, when we come to the doctrine of the atonement, 
the most vital importance. The final Christian idea is 
that God must be ethically satisfied, not because he 
bechances to have a moral standard, but because he has 
a moral standard and—anp this moral standard is the 
necessary expression of his absolute perfection. 

This is the Christian view, as I understand it; can we 
give to it any clarity by philosophical consideration? I 
think we can in the following manner: The fundamental 
individuality of God himself is under law, in the sense 
that it is a complex of initial qualities made organic under 
an eternal plan of harmony. An attribute, say that of 
justice, cannot exist in God in isolated pulsation, but 
must enter into modifying relations. Justice must come 
to terms with all God is. Perhaps you will understand 
me better if we think for a moment of the most noble 
kind of a man. In fact, it was by studying such a man 
that I first found the clue to the point. This most noble 
kind of a man is never just, never absolutely just, for 
his sense of justice is always chastened by other noble 
qualities which he possesses. In truth, no Christian man 
could be merely just for even one day and not cease to be 
a Christian. No one thing in large manhood gets its 


204 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


own way entirely. I will not say that lofty character 
is a compromise, for the word compromise has taken on 
a flavor of weakness, if not of positive unrighteousness ; 
but I will say that every lofty character is a modification 
of many qualities into harmonious reciprocity. Much 
more, then, it seems to me, is the individuality of God an 
organic whole where many items of attribute are modified 
and adjusted unto complete harmony. This underlying 
plan of adjustment, determining precisely to what extent, 
and precisely in what connection, an attribute is to have 
force, is what I understand by the law of God’s holiness. 
Therefore, the law of holiness, or holiness in the divine 
nature, is the finality, the fundament of all God’s being. 

Holding fast to this view of basal holiness in God, 
we have a clear entrance into the significance of his 
moral concern. God is a personal Being and so is 
both self-conscious and self-decisive. The law of holi- 
ness appears in self-consciousness, and the result is 
moral distinction with moral obligation. (This will be 
considered under moral law.) Toward this moral dis- 
tinction and obligation God bears in  self-decision. 
This self-decisive attitude toward the eternal distinc- 
tion between right and wrong is the divine moral 
concern. In intrinsic personal meaning this moral con- 
cern in God exactly corresponds to a man’s loyalty to 
righteousness. But in application to God the word 
loyalty is unsuitable, for personal loyalty implies the 
pressure of antagonistic motives, and the absolute God 
has no antagonism in motive. And yet the divine adop- 
tion of the law of holiness is not mechanical, but a genuine 
personalization of that law. Quickly you will catch my 
meaning if you think of the life of a saint in the final 
glory. Heis established, perfectly fixed in moral character, 
and so he has only one sort of motive urgent toward 
volition ; but nevertheless his decision is not an automatic 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 265 


spring at a mark—it is a self-decision made in the full 
vision of self-consciousness. 

We are now prepared to deal directly with our problem 
in harmony. Our question is this: How can we harmonize 
the moral concern of God with his love for men? Or 
we can state the question in another way: How can God 
have toward man a unitary bearing which has in it both 
personal love and moral concern? First of all, I must 
entirely reject the pantheistic view that the love of God 
has primary relation to man; that man, or at least some 
moral person, must be created to furnish an object for 
the divine interest as an inherent and original yearning. 
This view has crept into the very life of modern think- 
ing, and the result is a sentimentalism which is most 
unwholesome. God had no intrinsic need of men, or of 
any created objects for his love. The love of God is 
eternally complete, eternally infinite as an actual ex- 
perience in the triune Godhead, an experience belonging 
to the ineffable fellowship of the divine Persons. 

Next, let us notice the wonderful relation which this 
eternal love of God sustains to the law of holiness. Love 
as the dynamic of the law of holiness. It is by means of 
this very love that the organization of the Godhead is 
effected. The law of holiness becomes personal in moral 
concern, but it becomes dynamic in personal love. Thus, 
love is the holiness of God absolutely actualized in per- 
sonal experience. And thus, the eternal love of God is 
the most intensely moral feature in the whole life of the 
Godhead. 

Coming now to God’s love for man, what is it? exactly 
how much does it mean? It is infinite moral benefi- 
cence, neither more nor less. The love of God for man 
(whether we have in mind God the Father, or all the 
divine Persons in one individual organism) is but a moral 
longing to have all men achieve the everlasting experience 


266 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


in personality of moral concern made dynamic in the 
rejoicing fellowship of moral love. In other words, God’s 
interest in men is an unselfish reflex of the divine manner 
of life. God wants men to have, in their finite capacity, 
the same kind of moral organism, the same kind of 
moral joy in fellowship, that the Persons of the God- 
head have in their infinite capacity. Thus, our problem 
in harmony is solved by regarding the love of God for 
men as nothing other than an altruistic manifestation of 
his moral concern itself. 

The Wrath of God. Already we have considered God’s 
hatred of sin as expressed in depravity, in the natural 
world, in the broken brotherhood of man, and in the 
abnormal event of human death; but, if we are true to 
the whole message of the gospel, we must go further, 
and teach that this divine hatred of sin is also manifested 
in a bearing of wrath toward sinful men. Often in our 
preaching we say, ‘‘God hates sin, but he loves the 
sinner.”” The utterance is profoundly Christian in spirit, 
but it should never be taken to mean that the immediate 
divine attitude is complacent toward 2 man now in sin; 
as if the man himself could be actually separated from 
his action and motive. The plain Christian fact is that 
the immediate attitude of God toward any and every 
sinner is one of anger. While God will do all possible 
things to rescue a man from sin, he bears toward the man 
in positive wrath every moment of his sinful life, provided 
that the sin is personal sin involving moral responsibility. 

Sometimes this wrath of God is regarded as so purely 
and so intensely personal that it amounts to hardly more 
than a self-determined, infinite, personal grievance against 
the sinner. And, again, the wrath is regarded as so im- 
personal, so much a consequence of law, that it amounts 
to hardly more than automatic fury. Bishop Martensen, 
in his Dogmatics, gives us an illuminating word when he 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 267 


says: The wrath of God is ‘‘a revelation of love restrained, 
hindered, and stayed through unrighteousness.’’ His 
meaning is that God’s love is like a torrent in mighty 
rush, and when you try to dam the rushing stream it 
beats in violence against the obstacle. But Martensen’s 
conception requires a most careful treatment, or it, too, 
will drop all ethical quality in a mechanical movement. 
In some way the wrath of God must be first lifted out of all 
possibility of caprice and then filled with personal deci- 
sion. It must be made a thing of both law and personal- 
ity. As a protective enlargement of Bishop Martensen’s 
conception, I will state my own entire view of the wrath 
of God: 

1. The fundament of the matter is the law of the 
holiness of God. 

2. In every situation the primary demand is that this 
law of holiness shall be expressed. 

3. The objective expression of this law of holiness is 
always by the personal decision of God, and therefore 
the expression is a thing of both law and personality. 

4. In a normal situation, where there is a response in 
the yielding of the moral person, the law of holiness is 
fully expressed by the unitary bearing of God in simple 
moral love. That is, God’s entire interest comes out in 
one throb of infinite longing for the moral completion of 
the man’s life. 

5. In an abnormal situation, where on the part of the 
moral person there is actual resistance instead of a yield- 
ing response, the law of holiness can be expressed only by 
a twofold bearing, in which two things are emphasized, 
namely, a desire to rescue the sinner, and an inflexible 
regard for the law of holiness. It is a case where the 
freedom of man throws God’s bearing out of normal 
tendency and makes necessary a separate emphasis upon 
moral concern. - 


268 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


6. In a situation which is not only abnormal, but also 
irrevocably so, the law of holiness can be expressed only 
by moral concern alone. In this hopeless situation God’s 
only interest is in holiness. I well know how out of 
range it is with the temper of the Zeztgezst, but we should 
firmly say this: The holy God does not, and cannot, love 
a moral person who has in his freedom forever settled it 
that he will have no moral life. Such a man must be 
everlastingly under the full wrath of God. Moral love is 
not now beating against an obstacle, it has been finally 
rejected and flung back into the primary insistence upon 
the law of holiness. 


XIX. THE MORAL GOVERNMENT 


The Moral Law. As a starting point in rejection, I 
will analyze that view of the moral law which was given 
by Hugo Grotius in his famous Defensio, and which 
became the foundation of the pure governmental theory 
of the atonement. 

1. There are two kinds of divine laws: First, those laws 
which are grounded in the nature of things; or the abso- 
lute laws, such as, for example, the law against bearing 
false witness. Second, those laws which were created 
by the naked will of God; or the positive laws, such as, for 
example, a ceremonial law. 

2. An absolute law is fully irrelaxable. A positive 
law is not, in itself, irrelaxable, although it may be made 
irrelaxable by a divine oath, or by a promise of God, or 
by a special decree that it shall not be changed. 

3. The law involved in the atonement is that sin shall 
be punished according to its demerit, or with a punish- 
ment “corresponding to the crime” (pend talt que 
culpe respondeat). 

4. This law that sin shall be punished according to its 
demerit is not grounded in the nature of things, and is 
therefore a positive law, and is therefore by nature 
relaxable. 

5. Now comes the question, Has this law, as to the 
punishment of sin, ever been made irrelaxable by a 
divine oath, or by a promise of God, or by a special de- 
cree? After a discussion of Scripture which is remarkably 
shrewd even for a consummate lawyer, Grotius answers, 
No; neither by oath, nor by promise, nor by special de- 
cree, has this positive penal law been made unalterable. 


270 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


6. The law, then, that sin shall be punished with a 
punishment ‘corresponding to the crime”’ can be changed 
whenever God so determines. Thus, the way is prepared 
for the Grotian theory of substitution. 

One is tempted to criticise this Grotian conception of 
the moral law from end to end, but we have no time to 
spend on such wasteful work. I will say only this much, 
If there is even the tiniest spark of reality in the view I 
have no ability to make the priceless discovery. In the 
one place where Grotius could touch reality (the idea that 
something is deeper than the volition of God as personal) 
his treatment of the place results in distinctions which 
are as unreal as they are ingenious. 

But it is not enough to reject Grotius; we need to find 
a larger conception of the moral law. If we cannot lift 
the view of the moral law out of this atmosphere of the 
court of justice, there is not even the slenderest possibility 
of effecting any conviction in the Christian consciousness. 
The Christian man knows right well that the God of his 
salvation does not deal with men like a justice of the 
Supreme Court. In seeking this larger conception of the 
moral law our work is not a minute biblical exposition, 
but rather a philosophical study based upon the entire 
sweep of Christian teaching. Were we to consider Saint 
Paul alone, our final conclusion would be larger than any 
which could be exegetically drawn from his use of the 
term véuoc, although his use of that one word would 
surely, in some passages, carry us far beyond the Mosaic 
law. 

Before stating my own conception of the moral law, 
there is one important thing to be done in preparation, 
namely, to trace moral distinction to its causal finality. 
We touched upon the matter in our discussion of the 
holiness of God, but the full consideration was, for peda- 
gogical reasons, left over for this connection. Our ques- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 271 


tion is this: Passing beyond the relative right, what 
makes any absolutely right thing right, or any absolutely 
wrong thing wrong? Where and what is the eternal 
fundament of moral distinction? where and how is the 
eternal fixture of moral fact? There are several answers 
which I must instantly reject. The causal finality is not 
arbitrary. It is not what Horace Bushnell once de- 
nominated “‘the bare almightiness of God.’’ The sheer 
divine will does not create moral distinction, and then by 
naked volition fix one thing as right and another thing as 
wrong. Nor is there a law of moral distinction and fact 
beyond God, a law which can be conceived of as separate 
from God, “grounded in the nature of things.’’ There 
is no “nature of things” outside of God and in eternal 
operation. God is the total ultimate. I will not try to 
thrust even a point of imagination in behind God. All 
this suggestion of “two Infinites,”’ one of them being the 
personal God, and the other being an impersonal some- 
what, can have no lodgment in my philosophy of the 
Christian faith. Nor is Dr. Dale’s view that “in God 
the law is alive’’—that “it reigns on his throne, sways his 
scepter, is crowned with his glory’’—altogether satisfac- 
tory. Dale was, I am sure, on the track of the fact, but 
he did not quite clear up his thinking. He does not 
seem to be certain what and where this law is which 
comes to life in God. Sometimes the law appears to be 
placed in God, and then, again, outside of God. And 
then, again, the law is treated as if it were a pure ab- 
straction, an economical point of departure in thinking. 
But the law which Dale needed, and which probably he 
was seeking, is the law of God’s own organism, the law of 
holiness. This law of holiness is profounder than the 
personal life of God, and yet it does come to dominion 
only in that personal life. It has all the steadiness of a 
necessary impersonal Infinite; and yet it becomes ethical 


ce 


292 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


in personal experience and becomes completely effective 
in personal love. 

In closer work let us now see how this law of holiness is 
personally ethicalized. You will remember that in our 
study of personality we made a distinction between the 
two beats in self-consciousness, self-grasp and self- 
estimate? The same distinction is of worth in clearing 
up the situation here. When in self-grasp God seizes the 
law of holiness, or the basic plan of his own harmonious 
life, he places an estimate upon it, and that estimate is 
the personal beginning of the whole moral world. In 
that estimate there are two features: first, moral dis- 
tinction; second, moral obligation. That is, God both 
makes in self-consciousness an eternal difference between 
right and wrong and feels that the law of holiness insists 
upon the right. The feeling of this insistence is the 
original “sunrise of the moral ought.’’ To this moral 
ought, expressing the law of holiness in positive demand, 
God gives himself in eternal self-commitment; and this 
self-commitment is moral concern, or the divine personal 
righteousness. Now we are on the watch for the definite 
moral fact. A moral fact, absolutely considered, is 
-anything in harmony with the law of holiness thus per- 
sonalized:-For.example, it is wrong to tell a lie, not be- 
cause there is a law to such effect “ grounded in the nature 
of things,” and not because God has arbitrarily willed it 
so; but because God must will it so to satisfy the person- 
alized law of holiness. God himself cannot will a false- 
hood, cannot will contrary to truth or reality, and not 
violate his own moral concern for the law of holiness as 
that law is grasped and estimated in the divine self- 
consciousness. Words are poor tools here, but through 
all their poverty you will not fail to note the important 
thing which I am trying to do for Christian ethics by 
tracing all moral life back to an unyielding fundament 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 273 


without sacrificing the philosophical and practical sig- 
nificance of the personal God of the Christian faith. Of 
course, my analysis is sheer speculation, but it is a 
speculation which lends itself constantly to wholesome 
Christian thinking and feeling. And, further, you will not 
fail to note that my view supplies a clue to every element 
in the conscience of man, and indicates how profoundly 
man has been created in the image of God. In a final 
brief word, then, a thing is absolutely right, not because 
God wills it, but because God wills it in harmony with the 
plan of his own being as realized in his own personal life. 
Browning (as usual) is not far from the truth when he 


says: 
*‘T trust in God—the right shall be right 
And other than the wrong, while HE endures.” 


I will now state, as succinctly as may be, my full 
conception of the moral law. It is nothing other than 
the law of God’s holiness realized in his personal expe- 
rience, and may be itemized as follows: 

1. The law of holiness in the nature of God. This is 
the bare plan of harmony according to which the entire 
Godhead is one individual organism. 

2. The law of holiness in the self-consciousness of God. 
As the law is grasped it is estimated, and thence arises 
moral distinction and moral obligation. 

3. The law of holiness in the self-decision of God. As 
the moral obligation appears, God eternally yields to it 
in self-commitment, and thence arises the personal bearing 
of moral concern, and all specific volitions determining 
moral fact. In moral concern, God wills every right 
thing to be a right thing. 

4. The law of holiness in the personal fellowship of 
moral love. The law of holiness is the plan of harmony; 
but the plan is actually carried out, the holiness is per- 
fectly effected under the supreme motive of love which 


274 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


the persons of the Godhead have in their fellowship. 
For example, the law of holiness requires that the attri- 
bute of justice shall be modified to a certain extent; but 
this modification is accomplished only under the impulse 
of moral love, not God’s love for man or any creature, but 
that love which binds the persons of the Godhead together 
in blessed fellowship. Just as we found, in our study of 
the moral person, that moral love is the one motive pow- 
erful enough to organize completely his whole being, so 
the Infinite Being himself becomes an organism by 
means of moral love. I say here, too, moral love, for the 
love of God gathers up the entire moral process in per- 
sonality and so has in it moral distinction, moral obliga- 
tion, and moral concern. But these moral momenta are 
all transmuted into rapture by a personal love which is 
absolutely unselfish. In this way the divine moral life 
is lifted out of the frigid dreadfulness of mere duty, the 
moral ought is made a thing of rejoicing enthusiasm. In 
moral concern no person of the Godhead is thinking of 
himself; he feels that concern in his love for the other 
persons. Thus, we are able to conceive of an inflexible 
moral life which is also completely altruistic. 

The Moral Law in the Moral Government. Again we 
come to that great principle of personal expression. 
When we urge this principle as a law inherent in the 
divine personal life it may look at first as if we were 
yielding a tribute, if not a full assent, to the pantheistic 
idea of the necessary development of Deity. But we are 
yielding no tribute whatever. According to our view, 
no manifestation unfolds in any way the individuality 
of God. Nor is any expression necessary to achieve, or 
to develop, the personality of God. Already, God is a 
Being absolutely perfect in both individuality and per- 
sonality. The expression is purely personal. It is the 
normal activity, you might almost say the vocation, of 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 275 


personality. Personality cannot be idle, it must be doing 
something, it wants ‘to get out under the sky.” This 
is a totally different notion from that involved in pan- 
theism, different practically as well as theoretically. I 
will, however, admit this much: Were there only one 
person in the Godhead, this principle of expression would 
be entangled with a need of personal fellowship; and the 
solitary God would, in his awful loneliness, be driven to 
create persons to satisfy this social need; for it is simply 
inconceivable that any self-conscious being could live 
eternally alone. Even this would not lead (necessarily) 
to pantheism, but it would make the universe of created 
persons so fundamentally necessary to complete God’s 
life that a most unwholesome sentimentalism would be 
the outcome in theology. But the doctrine of the Trinity 
saves us from the sentimental entanglement. Moral per- 
sons are created by the triune God of the Christian faith 
under the motive of beneficence united with the prin- 
ciple of personal self-expression. 

The case as to the expression is, however, still clearer 
when we begin to consider the moral government; for 
the moral government deals with finite persons after they 
have been created ; and there can be no question but that 
God must deal with them according to the law of his 
own inner life, and not according to an arbitrary plan 
prepared for the occasion. God must so act toward 
moral creatures as to express truly what he is in himself. 
God could not create even a wake-robin as a mere whim, 
much less could he be arbitrary in matters of moral 
destiny. There are to-day writers who hold (if I under- 
stand them) that the moral law was made by the will of 
God on purpose to govern moral persons. Such a view 
is entirely beyond my credence. The moral law is eternal 
from its base to its summit, from the basal plan of holiness 
to the crowning experience of moral love. There would 


276 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


have been the moral law, precisely the same, too, had the 
universe of things and persons never been willed into 
existence. But this eternal, this unchangeable law does 
find a new expression in the moral government of God. 
Indeed, the moral government is nothing other than the 
moral law itself now related, in a scheme of perfect 
economy, to all created moral persons. It is the holiness 
of God made active in actual administration. 

The Goal of the Moral Government. In this administra- 
tion the moral government has an end in view, has a 
definite goal which it is ever seeking to reach. This goal 
may be conceived under the figure of three concentric 
circles. The comprehensive outer circle is the cosmic 
goal. At last, under the moral government, the entire 
universe is to manifest the perfect holiness of God. 
Often it has been affirmed that such a complete cosmic 
expression of holiness requires that every individual moral 
person shall ultimately become holy. I do not see any 
force in the affirmation. What is required is this: The 
final universe must express all God is. And therefore 
every created person must at last be so placed and so 
treated as to reveal the moral law in its long reach from 
the law of holiness, on through moral concern, to moral 
love. But it is interposed, ‘‘A sinner forever unsaved 
could not evince the moral love of God.” Why not, I 
ask, if God had loved him and used all the resources of the 
Godhead to save him, and his everlasting condition and 
placement manifested all the facts? 

The middle circle is the goal of the individual holy person. 
I am now thinking of angels, and all individual moral 
persons, who have no racial connection. The outcome 
in this individual goal is more than a bare expression of 
divine holiness; it is such an expression in all the joy of 
actual fellowship with God. All holy persons are to be 
admitted into the presence of God, and to witness the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 277 


glory of God. It will not quite answer to say that the doéa 
is enlarged, but we can say that it is accommodated to 
the moral creature, so that he can, in a finite measure, 
take part in the ineffable experience of the Godhead. In 
no absolute sense can a creature ever be like God, whether 
in being or in experience; but a holy creature can live in 
the blaze of the infinite life and never be consumed; can 
gather into consciousness the supreme felicity and never 
be overwhelmed. The innermost circle is the racial goal. 
This innermost goal has all the significance of the other 
two, as to expression of holiness and fellowship with God; 
but it has, further, a peculiarity of its own. Both the 
expression and the fellowship are to be with a racial 
emphasis. The race of mankind is to be made a holy 
brotherhood; and in perfect social solidarity 1s to be 
taken into the divine déga, and is there to enjoy all God 
is and manifest all God is. Thus, the goal of the moral 
government is one goal, as to the expression of holiness: 
but three united goals, as to the manner of expression. 
The fact of a goal to be reached implies intentional 
movement toward it; and this movement is the one key 
to all method in the moral government. God does this 
or allows that, all because he is trying to move. For the 
sake of economy, let us now keep man alone in mind, 
inasmuch as we are working specially toward man’s re- 
demption. Men are sinners and men are free persons, 
and therefore holiness cannot be expressed at a stroke, as 
omnipotence might be expressed. The full expression 
can be achieved only by means of a gradual movement 
which ends in the goal. This movement is secured by 
augment in expression. That is, in every situation the 
moral government is trying to get into concrete mani- 
festation something more of God’s moral law than was 
evident before. Connected with this principle of aug- 
ment is the principle of crisis. Now and again the 


278 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


history breaks into great points of meaning where 
the moral law completely dominates the event; and the 
movement under moral government fairly leaps toward 
the goal. But the one supremely important thing to 
fasten in the mind, before we take up such details of 
moral government as penalty and moral requirement, is 
this idea of movement by augment toward the goal. 

Moral Requirement. The moral requirement is what 
the moral government requires, as a moral demand, in 
any given stage of the movement on toward the final 
goal. In the Garden of Eden the requirement was: 
‘But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
shalt not eat of it’? (Gen. 2. 17). Whatever this was in 
fact, it was a temporary demand suitable to the child- 
hood of the race; but still it was the beginning of a 
movement toward the goal, and never is it to be treated 
out of relation to that movement. 

Another stage in moral requirement is expressed in the 
Decalogue, or the Law of the Ten Words, where mo- 
rality and religion are knit together in “a charter of 
ethical piety.” For our present purpose it is not neces- 
sary to discuss the relation this law sustains to the 
different codes of Hebrew law. (See article by Professor 
Driver in the Hastings Dictionary, vol. iii, p. 64.) All 
we need is to note the loftiest point in the Hebrew con- 
ception of moral requirement. On the one hand, we are 
not to regard the Decalogue as an unimportant matter of 
merely local significance; and, on the other hand, we are 
not to regard it asa finality. The Decalogue was fulfilled 
by our Lord. Following Turretin, some theologians 
have taught that the Decalogue needed no correction, 
and our Lord only brought out its real meaning. But 
our Lord’s new interpretation amounted to a correction 
of the whole spirit of the Decalogue, and was a mighty 
movement toward the goal of the moral government. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 279 


As Professor Paterson has shown (Hastings Dictionary, 
vol. i, p. 580), it is quite ‘possible to construct with 
scarcely a gap the Decalogue according to Christ’; and 
at every point there is movement toward the larger ideal. 
Following the law of Christ, one does not cease to be a 
moral man; but he passes into the spirit of moral love, 
which now fills his consciousness and gives motive for the 
most noble conduct. It is somewhat as if a man having 
a lofty ideal of duty, but also having with this ideal of 
duty a spirit of sheer legalism, should suddenly find him- 
self in active possession of a great heart throbbing 
warmly toward man and God. Would he not be sur- 
prised? The exact truth is in the utterance of Saint 
Paul when he says: “‘ Love therefore is the fulfillment of 
the law.’’ (Read Rom. 13. 8-10.) 

Penalty. There are two very different views of the 
significance of penalty in the moral government: One 
view is that penalty is the automatic visitation of justice 
upon the offender in precise regard to his guilt. Just 
as fire will burn you to the extent of your exposure, so 
justice will reach you to the exact extent of your sinful 
exposure. According to this view, when extremely and 
consistently held, there is in penalty no reformatory aim 
and no deterrent office. The other and opposing view 
is that all penalty is really utilitarian—reformatory, or 
educational, or in some way protective of moral interests. 
In this connection Dr. John Miley did some wise work in 
trying to weld the two views. In his Systematic Theol- 
ogy (ii, 173) he says: “ There are the two offices of justice. 
But they must never be separated. Penalty, as a means 
in the use of justice, has an end beyond the retribution 
of sin. But, whatever its ulterior end, it is just only as 
it threatens or falls upon, demerit. And only thus can, 
it fulfill its high office in the interest of moral government. 
It is the failure first properly to discriminate the two 


280 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


offices of justice in the punishment of sin and the pro- 
tection of rights, and then properly to combine the two 
elements in the one doctrine of punishment, that the 
rectoral atonement exposes itself to really serious objec- 
tions, which yet have no validity against a true con- 
struction of the theory.” This is a complete answer to 
those who claim that to hold the rectoral aim and worth 
of penalty is to have ‘‘no ground of punishment but the 
benefit of others.” But my objection to the rectoral 
theory is not in the least like the objection of those 
represented by Dr. Charles Hodge. To me, the whole 
utilitarian conception, even if so modified that “the law 
of expediency [only] determines the measure of divine 
penalties within the demerit of sin,” is not profound 
enough. It does perpetual violence to the awful note 
of reality in redemption. I am not satisfied with auto- 
matic penalty, nor with expedient penalty, nor with the 
two kinds joined together to express the office of justice. 
We must have, I believe, the larger conception that the 
aim in all penalty is so to express, not the justice of God, 
but the holiness of God, as to secure actual movement 
toward the final goal of moral government. This ex- 
pression of the divine holiness is not automatic, and yet 
it is as necessary as though it were automatic. This 
expression of the divine holiness is not an expedient 
either, and yet it has more moral value in the moral 
government than any expedient could have. Penalty is 
for actual movement toward the holy goal. And so the 
only way to do without a given penalty is to procure such 
a substitute for it as will express more completely or more 
intensely the holiness of God. 


XX. THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF DEATH | 


BEFORE considering the teaching of the Bible which 
bears directly upon the death of Christ, we need to de- 
termine what meaning death itself has from the Christian 
point of view. My plan is first to indicate the non- 
Christian conceptions of death; then to examine the Bible 
in both Testaments ; then to furnish a philosophy of death 
adequate to express and protect the Christian meaning. 


Non-CHRISTIAN CONCEPTIONS 

The Idealization of Death. Death is idealized into a 
friendly and even beautiful event by some of the modern 
philosophical writers, but especially by the modern 
poets. This poetic idealization is not to be explained 
by the natural temper of the poet, which inclines him to 
“transform a stump into a stairway,” but rather by the 
fact that he is (with notable exceptions) a heathen mystic 
made superficially hopeful by a Christian atmosphere. 
He is an easy optimist who has never paid the ethical 
price of a profound optimism. A perfect example of 
this class is Walt Whitman, who has influenced modern 
poetry in a most subtle manner. In a poem, written as 
a protest against the thoroughly Christian painting, 
Death’s Valley, by George Inness, Whitman says: 


“Nay, do not dream, designer dark, 

Thou hast portrayed or hit thy theme entire: 

I, hoverer of late by this dark valley, by its confines, having glimpses 
of it, 

Here enter lists with thee, claiming my right to make a symbol too. 


282 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


“For I have seen many wounded soldiers die, 

After dread suffering—have seen their lives pass off with smiles; 

And I have watched the death-hours of the old; and seen the infant die; 
The rich, with all his nurses and his doctors; 

And then the poor, in meagerness and poverty; 

And I myself for long, O Death, have breathed my every breath 
Amid the nearness and the silent thought of thee. 


‘And out of these and thee, 

I make a scene, a song, brief (not fear of thee, 

Nor gloom’s ravines, nor bleak, nor dark—for I do not fear thee, 

Nor celebrate the struggle, or contortion, or hard-tied knot), 

Of the broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rippling 
tides, and trees and flowers and grass, 

And the low hum of living breeze—and in the midst God’s beautiful 
eternal right hand, 

Thee, holiest minister of Heaven—thee, envoy, usherer, guide at last 
of all, 

Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot called life, 

Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death.” 


The Scientific View of Death. This scientific view Dr. 
Newman Smyth has gathered up, for popular service, in 
his interesting apologetic, The Place of Death in Evo- 
lution. For our purpose here we do not require the 
details of the discussion. The gist of it all is that, as a 
result of scientific investigation, death is regarded as a 
servant of life in the economy of nature. Death is not a 
finality of failure, but a sacrifice to secure a higher process 
of life. Death is a crucial feature in the normal move- 
ment toward the finest vitality. Dr. Smyth says: “As 
life becomes more organized and complex, death pre- 
vails. It comes to reign on earth, because it comes to 
serve. At length in the history of life a living form arose, 
so multicellular and so well organized that it ceased to 
continue the course of life, simply by dividing and mul- 
tiplying itself into daughter cells; it had acquired the 
power of giving up its life for another; it died in order that 
its offspring might continue its life in forms struggling to 
still higher organization and better fitted to survive while 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 283 


it must perish. One parent form passes away in order 
that others may catch up the motion of life, and in turn 
transmit to others life’s rhythm and joy. Thus death 
comes in to help, and not merely to hurt; to help life 
further on and higher up, not to put a stop to life.” 


THE CONCEPTION OF DEATH IN THE BIBLE 


In the Old Testament. By death the writers of the Old 
Testament usually mean what we mean by physical or 
bodily death—not annihilation, but the cessation of this 
existence on earth by the separation of the soul from the 
body. Professor A. B. Davidson says: ‘‘By death the 
Old Testament means what we mean when we use the 
word. It is the phenomenon which we observe. Now, 
all parts of the Old Testament indicate the view that at 
death the person is not annihilated; he continues to sub- 
sist in Sheol, the place of the dead, though in a shadowy 
and feeble form occasioned by the withdrawal of the spirit 
of life.” 

Sometimes the objection has been raised that death 
as used in Gen. 2. 17 (“for in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die’’) could not have meant 
bodily death, inasmuch as Adam and Eve did not, ac- 
cording to the account, die a bodily death on the day of 
their disobedience. But the real meaning of the Hebrew 
is not fully brought out in our English Bible, not even in 
the Revised Version. The real meaning is (see Dillmann’s 
Commentary 7 loco): ‘‘ Death will be certainly for thee 
the consequence thereof.’’ But even if the English trans- 
lation were correct, the objection would have no force; 
for death is a long process which only culminates in the 
final separation of the soul fromthe body. Asa matter of 
direful fact, a man begins to die as soon as he is born. 
Our entire relation to the natural world is one of death; 
and many of us have a hard fight of it to keep alive at all, 


284 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


As Martin Luther said in his Table Talk: “ Death peeps 
out at every limb.” 

I carefully examined about two hundred passages, 
where the term death is either used or implied, in the Old 
Testament; and I did not find one where the meaning was 
not (plainly or probably) that of bodily death. In some 
instances, though, it seemed to me that the whole meaning 
of the statement was not exhausted by the idea of bodily 
death. It was bodily death and a peculiar background. 

In the New Testament. We have in the New Testament 
a much more complicated situation. But we can start 
with at least two certain points: First, that in the New 
Testament the usage is sometimes like the prevailing 
usage of the Old Testament, the term death meaning 
nothing more than bodily death; and, second, that in the 
New Testament the usage is sometimes most compre- 
hensive, the term death meaning the total present condttion 
of the sinner. Now the question comes up, Does the 
term death ever mean in the New Testament narrowly and 
precisely moral, or spiritual, death? So eminent an 
authority on New Testament words as Professor Hermann 
Cremer says, No (Worterbuch, 7 loco). But I cannot be 
so certain. There are a number of places where, as in 
the second chapter of Ephesians, both text and context 
would seem to require a meaning sharply beyond the 
general idea of an abnormal total condition produced by 
sin, a meaning exactly corresponding to that disintegration 
of conscience which we are wont to call moral death. 

Again we have, as a striking peculiarity of the book of 
the Revelation, the expression, “second death.” With- 
out doubt this means, not the annihilation of the 
wicked, but their everlasting punishment. In his Critical 
History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, Professor 
Charles says: “‘ The second death is the death of the soul, 
as the first is the death of the body. It is not the an- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 285 


nihilation, but the endless torment of the wicked that is 
here meant.” 

Death and Sin. As to the relation which sin sustains 
to the ‘‘second death,”’ and to every phase of moral death, 
we need no argument whatever. Nor is it economy to 
spend out time in proving that in the Old Testament.sin 
and bodily death are placed in a penal connection. Our 
crucial question is this: Does Saint Paul teach that bodily 
death is a penal consequence of Adam’s transgression? 
The test passages are 1 Cor. 15. 21-22 and Rom. 5. 12. 
To economize, we will consider only the passage from 
Romans. It reads thus: “Therefore, as through one man 
sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so 
death passed unto all men, for that all sinned.” The 
matter is of such extreme importance that we will deal 
with it through exegetical authority: 

Gifford on Romans (The Speaker’s Commentary). 
“That death must here be understood in its primary 
sense as the death of the body, is clear from the connec- 
tion with verse 14, where no other meaning is admissible, 
and from the unmistakable reference to the narrative in 
Genesis (Gen. 2. 17) and the sentence there pronounced, 
‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’ (Gen. 
BY 9)." 

Beet on Romans. ‘‘We have no indication that the 
word death (chap. 5. 12-19) means anything except the 
death of the body. The argument rests on the story 
of Genesis; and there we have no hint of any death ex- 
cept (Gen. 3. 19) the return of dust to dust. The proof 
in Rom. 5. 14 of the statement in verse 12 refers evidently 
to the visible reign of natural death. And the comparison 
of Adam and Christ requires no other meaning of the 
word. Through one man’s sin the race was condemned 
to go down into the grave; and through one man’s obedi- 
ence and one divine proclamation of pardon believers 


286 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


will obtain a life beyond the grave. The whole argu- 
ment is but a development of 1 Cor. 15. 22.” 

Vaughan on Romans. ‘Natural death, primarily, and 
as the punishment specially denounced; spiritual and 
eternal death, incidentally and secondarily, as the neces- 
sary consequence of the severance of a creature from the 
service and love of the Creator.” 

Meyer on Romans. ‘The @dévaro¢ is physical death 
viewed as the separation of the soul from the body and 
its transference to Hades. Had Paul taken @dvaroc 
in another sense, therefore, he must have definitely in- 
dicated it, in order to be understood.” 

Godet on Romans. That the meaning is physical death 
Godet says ‘‘is confirmed besides by the obvious allusion 
to the narrative of Genesis (2. 17 and 3. 19) as well as by 
the explanation in the following verses (13 and 14), where 
the word death is evidently taken in the strict sense.” 

Orello Cone (Paul, the Man, the Missionary, and the 
Traveler). “That the @dvaroc of Rom. 5. 12 is prima- 
rily physical death there can be no doubt, not only on 
account of the analogy of the Jewish theology, but also 
because the word is employed without any indication that 
other than its literal sense is intended.” 

Bruce (Saint Paul’s Conception of Christianity). “ When 
Saint Paul says, ‘So death passed upon all men,’ does he 
allude to the familiar fact of physical dissolution, or is 
death to be taken comprehensively as including at once 
temporal, spiritual, and eternal consequences? If my 
conjecture as to the Adam-Christ train of thought be 
correct, we must understand @avartoc in the restricted 
sense.” 

The Mood of the Bible. The exegesis of this or that 
passage of Scripture does not, however, furnish us with 
the full case. The Bible has a mood toward physical 
death, This mood is expressed, for instance, in the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 287 


ninetieth psalm, that “most pathetic description of the 
drift of the generations of men into darkness.’’ And 
even such seeming breaks in the mood as we find in the 
third chapter of the book of Job really only serve to em- 
phasize the general attitude of the Bible toward bodily 
death. In the Old Testament the mood is one of pro- 
found sadness; but in the New Testament the mood 
changes and is intensified into the most unmitigated 
hostility to physical death. Death is not regarded as 
“my good friend death,’”’ but as man’s relentless enemy 
to be overcome only by the power of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God. And so, even if there were no definite text 
in point, we would need to explain this mood from the 
standpoint of redemption and the Christian conscious- 
ness; and such an explanation would require the precise 
connection between bodily death and the divine punish- 
ment of sin. In one sentence, there is not the slightest 
doubt but that the Word of God treats physical death as 
an abnormal human event coming upon the race as an 
immediate penalty for the Adamic disobedience of God’s 
command, 

Conclusions. But our study of the teaching of the 
Bible, more thoroughly gathered up, results in the fol- 
lowing definite conclusions: 

1. While the Bible sometimes teaches that the con- 
dition of the sinner is a state of spiritual death, and that 
this spiritual death eventuates in everlasting punishment, 
it nevertheless puts the most significant stress upon 
bodily death. 

2. Bodily death is not regarded as a friendly or useful 
event, as a normal feature in a beneficial process of 
nature; but is regarded as abnormal and hostile and 
terrible. 

3. The explanation of this biblical attitude toward 
bodily death is to be found in just one thing, namely, 


288 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


that this death expresses God’s inflexible hatred of sin, 
is the penal stamp which he has fixed upon the entire 
human race because of man’s original transgression. 

4. The consequent Christian bearing toward bodily 
death is one of sorrow, dread, and hatred; and all this 
lifted into solemn triumph by means of the Lord Jesus 
Christ alone. Saint Paul has the exact, full Christian 
feeling when he bursts out: ‘‘ But—thanks be to God, 
which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ.” 

A Puitosopuicat Stupy or DeaTH 

What is Death? In practical speech death is the 
negation of life. Death is the absence of life. It does 
not carry with it necessarily the idea of total annihila- 
tion. Surely there might be death with annihilation, 
but usually there is no such entire destruction of the 
object in death. For example, here is a tree which has 
been entirely dead for months; but it still stands with 
trunk, branches, bark, and roots—the tree has not been 
annihilated, but it is dead. 

What is Life? But when we say that “Death is the 
absence of life,” what do we mean by life? In his First 
Principles, Herbert Spencer says, “Life is definable as 
the continuous adjustment of internal relations to ex- 
ternal relations.” But such adjustment is rather what 
life does than what life is. A better definition is that of 
Bishop Dahle: “Life is that force in an organism which 
places all other forces, working in it, in serviceable rela- 
tion to its growth and preservation.’’ This is very close 
to the fact, but not quite complete. Let us begin with 
the idea of an organism. An organism is a complex of 
essential parts, every part making contribution to the 
common end, and all the parts interdependent. That 
is the lowest organic condition. In a higher organism 
every part must be both means and end—by which I 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 289 


mean that every part gets as much as it gives. In the 
highest conceivable organism, like the personal organism 
of the Trinity, not only is every part essential to the 
organism, but also the entire organism is essential to 
every part; that is, the very existence of every part is 
possible only in and by means of the entire organism. 
Now, what I understand by life is this: It is the power of 
organic action. Or, it is the power which every organism 
has to act as an organism. That tree is dead because its 
power to act as an organic tree is gone. The parts of the 
tree are still in action as separate parts, change after 
change taking place, but the parts do not act together 
to accomplish a common purpose, and so the tree as a tree 
is dead. And the death of the tree began the very 
moment any smallest feature of the tree went its own 
way and no longer made contribution to the common 
task. Thus, life is the power of reciprocity in action, 
and death is the absence of that power. And so the 
inevitable mark of death is the breaking up of an or- 
ganism. In the beginning of death the organism begins 
to break up; and in the completion of death the organism 
is entirely broken up. There is no need, with Bishop 
Dahle, to emphasize the ideas of growth and preservation, 
for the organism will take care of itself and exercise every 
organic function, if it only has the power of organic 
action. 

The Organism of a Man. Already, in considering the 
racial nexus, I have called your attention to the fact that 
the human body has great importance in Christian doc- 
trine; but here I wish to get at the same point from 
another angle. The organism of a man is not completed 
in the soul alone; full manhood requires both soul and 
body. But we must be careful at this point not to yield 
an inch to the materialists. The Christian conception is 
squarely between the two extremes: 1. That the soul is 


290 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


dependent upon the body for existence itself; and, 2. That 
the man is complete as a bare personal soul. Speaking 
of Saint Paul’s teaching, Professor Charles says: “ Ac- 
cording to the apostle, on the other hand [over against 
Philo’s idea that the body is the enemy of the soul], 
though the flesh is in antagonism with the spirit, there 
is no such antagonism between the body and the spirit. 
Nay, rather the body is indispensable to the completed 
well-being of the latter. A bodiless human spirit is 
‘naked,’ is in.a state of weakness and deprivation.” 

The biblical emphasis upon the importance of the body 
can be thus related to the conception which I have given 
of life and death: Man is a personal soul, or a spirit, in 
such vital fitness with a physical body that the two, soul 
and body, make in their plan one organism. When the 
organic relation is perfect, then there is the full manifesta- 
tion of human life; when the organic relation is impaired, 
there is the first note of death; and when the organism is 
entirely broken up, then death is complete. 

The Source of Life. Not yet, though, have we discov- 
ered the root of the matter. Underlying all the utter- 
ance and emphasis of the Bible there is one primal con- 
ception, namely, God is himself the source of life. It is 
not merely that life comes from God as Creator, it is 
profounder—God is the life. No created thing has any 
power to live. The organism does not create, but only 
expresses the power. Now, I think, we can see the tap- 
root. Man as an organism is utterly dependent upon 
God. It is only when man is in absolute correspondence 
with God that he has the power of perfect organic action. 
But man is a moral person, and therefore he cannot have 
a purely automatic correspondence with God. The cor- 
respondence needs to be personal and moral. In swifter 
speech, a man, to live a full human life, must have con- 
stant companionship with God in moral love. Man, thus, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 291 


by. his disobedience snapped the vital relation—broke 
away from the very source of life—and so instantly the 
human organism began to break up—away from God 
man began to die. The whole case can be analyzed in 
this way: 

1. The deepest fact of human death is that man is.not 
in vital personal companionship with God. 

2. Thus, death is first of all evident in man’s moral 
nature, for right there is the point of personal rupture 
with God. 

3. But death is not only moral, but also human, in the 
sense that it injures, and at last breaks up, that organism 
of soul and body which is essential to a full human life. 

4. The extreme biblical stress upon bodily death is for 
two reasons: First, because bodily death has in its awful 
event the entire significance of death. A man’s organism 
goes to pieces in death because he has not moral power 
enough to keep the thing together; and he lacks this 
power because the original vital connection with God 
has been lost. And, second, because bodily death is the 
consummate expression of God’s hatred of sin—indeed, 
the penal mark against sin. 

The Bodily Death of Man and Death in the Natural 
World. If we consider man’s death as a consequence of 
sin the question arises, How can we relate man’s bodily 
death to the universal and structural fact of death in the 
natural world? Different answers have been given, of 
which the most important are these: 

1. The connection between death and sin is proleptic. 

Foreknowing man’s sin, God provided a world to fit the 
fact. 

2. The tree of life was intended to protect man, or to 
lift him beyond the operation of natural law. In com- 
menting on Rom. 5. 12, Dr. Whedon says: “Adam’s first 
organism seems to have been naturally dissoluble, and 


292 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


its dissolution to have been prevented by the tree of life. 
His bodily immortality seems thus to have been properly 
supernatural.’’ A view something like this was held by 
Professor Franz Delitzsch, who looked upon the tree of 
life as having a kind of sacramental efficiency. 

Dr. Latimer, the dean of the School of Theology in 
Boston University, united the two views. In his lectures 
on Didactic Theology he said: ‘‘ As to physical death, the 
difficulty is removed when we consider that it is likely 
that man was created mortal and the tree of life guaran- 
teed his immortality. . . . Yet even this mortality was 
the result of sin, proleptically, so to speak, since God’s 
foreknowledge of man’s fall determined him to confer 
upon man a mortal constitution.”’ 

3. The answer, however, which best suits the temper 
and method of modern Christian apology is that sin 
merely gives a new moral content to a normal event. 
Death as a part of the process of natural law is a normal 
thing, but the entrance of sin into man’s life transforms 
for him the event into a dreadful abnormal experience. 
The most convincing statement of this view has been 
given by Professor James Denney. I will quote a frag- 
ment: “Conscience, quickened by the law of God, has to 
look at death, and to become alive, not to its physical 
antecedents, but to its divine meaning. What is God's 
voice in death to a spiritual being? It is what the apostle 
represents it—death is the wages of sin. It is that in 
which the divine judgment of sin comes home to con- 
science.’’ Of course, this view can readily be joined to 
the proleptic; and this connection is skillfully made by © 
Professor Bruce in his Apologetics. 

4. This last answer to our question, this conception of 
human death as a normal event filled with abnormal 
quality, I have most seriously tried to accept, for it affords 
the Christian preacher “the line of least resistance’’; but 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 293 


I am obliged to reject it as insufficient. Jt 71s too easy. 
It does not penetrate the awful tragedy of sin. Sin, I 
believe, has spoiled the whole universe. Everything 
from the flowers to the planets is a failure—does not work 
out the full ideal. Nature is like a limping king. He 
gets along, but his movement is out of keeping with. his 
majesty. Let the scientist investigate and induce his 
conclusions; I will in my thinking and feeling make no 
terms with death. I hate death; I hate it everywhere— 
in garden, and meadow, and swamp, and forest—every- 
where; it violates every noble thing in me; I long for a 
world where there will be no dead thing, where every 
created thing will just live, live, live forever! I must, 
therefore, begin with the proleptic view. Man is the 
center in cosmic significance. This does not necessarily 
require that our earth must have the importance now 
assigned to it in the speculations of Alfred Russel Wallace. 
It merely requires that our earth, and the whole regime 
of nature under which man lives, has been created with 
fitting reference to his peculiar probation, and to his 
terrible rejection of God. The world ever manifests a 
shattered ideal, and one feature of this sad manifestation 
is the process of death. From the standpoint of the 
divine ideal, death is an abnormal thing. All its waste 
and foulness and (in the higher ranges of life) suffering 
and positive cruelty are, in the deepest thinking, entirely 
unnecessary. The fact that death is now made to serve 
in many ways a useful purpose is a point of no force, for 
sin itself is made to serve in many ways a useful purpose. 
And, further, we are, according to the Christian faith, 
finally to have a universe with no death in it from side to 
side. If the Christian man can believe in the reality of 
an ultimate universe having no process of death, surely 
he can believe that such a universe is God’s ideal; and 
that this world with death all over it is but the eternal 


204 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ideal accommodated to the awful history of human 
sin. 

This proleptic view will answer in application to the 
world as the environment of man’s probation, and in 
application to man’s constitution and placement in the 
world; but it will not answer as an explanation of man’s 
own experience of death. For it is perfectly evident that 
the account in the Old Testament, and special references 
in the New Testament to that account, demand a definite 
historical connection between the first transgression and 
man’s bodily death. This definite connection I would 
make in this manner: Man was created mortal; he was 
placed under the possible dominion of all natural law; 
but he was also created a moral person, with full freedom, 
in a peculiar plan of vital relation with God. From the 
very start, the intention, the ideal purpose, was for man 
to develop as an actual self-conscious companion of the 
living God. The realization of such vital companionship 
would not require a high degree of mental life, but it 
would require absolute obedience. Perhaps the tree of 
life, of which Whedon and Delitzsch and Latimer made 
so much, may be regarded as the picture-indication of this 
vital plan of companionship with God. Had man obeyed 
God, the companionship would have been maintained, 
and in such companionship man would have remained 
organic, could not have died. In other words, the higher 
possibility would have triumphed over the lower possi- 
bility. Precisely what would have taken place we do not 
know, but we can get a hint by thinking of the tran- 
scendent event of translation, and by thinking of the life 
of our Lord immediately after the resurrection. What 
I hold, then, is that for man to live in a world of death 
did not make it necessary for man to be a slave to natural 
law, and to pass out of this earthly existence by the 
rupture of the human organism. The possibility of this 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 295 


rupture was proleptic, but the rupture was historical— 
was entirely due to man’s sin. Thus, there was a fall in 
the most literal sense. 

But it is urged, ‘‘The perfect saint now on earth must 
die.’ Yes, the saint must die because he does not, in 
all his holy life, get back the connection of vitality. He 
may come to love God supremely, that I believe; and he 
may organize all his motive life by means of that one 
mighty motive of supreme love; but he has not a con- 
stant vital seizure of God in self-consciousness. That 
he cannot have before his glorification beyond the grave. 
Man’s perfection in self-decision is possible in this life, but 
his perfection in self-consciousness, and so his perfection 
as an individual person, is not possible in this life. 

The Personal Significance of Bodily Death. You will 
remember what I have said as to the social meaning of 
man’s body—that his body furnishes him with the ma- 
chinery of personalexpression. Keep that point in mind, 
and bodily death will begin to take on a large personal 
significance. In the experience of bodily death a man is 
for the first time absolutely alone. As long as he had a 
body he had to see something, or hear something, or 
touch something. A man may have no fellowship with 
men, and may think that he has exhausted the torture 
of loneliness. But he has not exhausted it. He can still 
see the sun, or hear the thunder, or feel the wind in his 
face. These things do not meet his personal need at all, 
but they do occupy his attention, and protect him from 
the solitude of profoundest introspection. But in death, 
the body is torn away, and the man has no protection 
whatever. He is naked in the silence. All he has is just 
his own isolated poverty of person—a single, impotent, 
self-conscious atom of being—a bare needle-point of quick 
personality all alone in the long reaches of the Infinite. 

The Moral Significance of Bodily Death. The most 


/ 
296 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


dreadful feature of the isolation, though, lies not in the 
fact that the sinner has lost his world of persons and 
things; but in this fact together with the further fact that 
he has not lost his conscience. He is not only absolutely 
alone, he is also alone with conscience. Not one person, 
not one thing, can even for an instant shelter him 
from the violence of the moral smiting. Now, of all 
times, this lonely sinner needs the friendly presence of 
God; but his death is empty of the friendly God. His 
death expresses the holy anger of God. The man must 
now meet the insistence of God’s moral concern closely 
and finally before the last door of destiny is forever 
closed. O God! if that isolated sinner had only yielded 
to his Saviour, and now had him in personal fellowship 
there in the solitude of death, how the whole situation 
would be transformed! 

The Racial Significance of Bodily Death. As the human 
body is the racial nexus, the loss of the body in death 
must have racial significance. Not only does physical 
death isolate the individual person, it also breaks him off 
from his race. He is now a man without a race. The full 
meaning of his raceless condition will be brought out in 
other connections; but I want you to begin to hold the 
point even now. The Adamic race, as a racial ground- 
work of social solidarity, is gradually being destroyed by 
bodily death. One by one men are by death wrenched 
out of the racial relation, and flung out into the isolation 
of bare personal existence, to await as responsible per- 
sons the final judgment. 

The Fitness of Bodily Death as Penalty. Although 
bodily death is a divine penalty, still we are not to think 
of it as an arbitrary penalty. It is not “a judicial 
execution, but a consequence involved in the nature of 
the transgression.” But this statement must not be 
taken to signify anything automatic. God personally 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 207 


indorses an expression of his hatred of sin which fits into 
the nature of the transgression. You can see this in- 
trinsic fitness the moment you bring to mind again the 
essential character of personal sin. In personal sin the 
normal independence and self-valuation of personality 
are so extremely emphasized over against the demand of 
the moral ideal as to become selfish egotism. The moral 
person says: “J will do right.” The sinner says: “J will 
do wrong.’ In each case the free and majestic person 
is at the front; but in one case there is submission, and 
in the other case rejection of moral authority. Bodily 
death is in consummate fitness with this supreme selfish- 
ness of personal sin. Bodily death is the strongest ac- 
centuation of egotism. It takes this egotist, this sinner, 
wrenches him out of the protective physical scene, breaks 
him off from his race, flings him into absolute isolation, 
and compels him to inhabit his own selfish fragment of 
being. Death says to the sinner, You would not obey 
God, you would not love your fellow men, you lived for 
self, you wanted only sel{—THEN TAKE iT!” 

Such an extreme accentuation of the inherent egotism 
of personal sin is a most fitting end to a life of probation. 
To see this point clearly we must note again the relation 
probation sustains to personality, and especially noticing 
the probational import of self-consciousness. Already I 
have spoken of the fundamental motives which urge men 
toward volition (in the analytical treatment of the fall 
of man), one of these motives being bodily, one cosmic, 
one social, and one personal. But while several of these 
motives are not inherent in bare personality, yet it is in 
the operation of personality that they all come to ultimate 
deposit in moral character. For we must never forget 
that moral character can only be achieved by positive 
indorsement in self-decision. But for such self-decision 
there must be self-consciousness. Now we are ready for 


298 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


our point. This self-consciousness which is essential to 
self-decision, and therefore essential to the fixing of moral 
character, is a sporadic experience in our earthly life. It 
comes in broken flashes, now and then, here and there; 
and it is only in these blazing moments of self-vision that 
we have our strokes of destiny. But a man needs to 
review the whole history of self-decision, to behold in the 
flash of God’s moral lightning all he has done, and all he 
now is as a result of all he has done. He needs one 
final crucial chance thoroughly to face his manhood, and, 
in this fullness of self-conscious opportunity, to accept 
himself, or to reject himself. Thus, death is the climax 
of probation. 

There are in your minds, I quickly perceive, two rising 
objections to this large probational valuation of bodily 
death. The first objection is that death is often such an 
event of pain or confusion or lethargy as to be clearly 
unsuitable for such pregnant work in self-decision. My 
briefest answer to this objection is a personal one. My 
own experience has taught me that the surface of death, 
what the physician and the other bystanders observe, is 
no indication whatever of the personal event beneath the 
surface. The door of the inner chamber is shut. The 
second objection is that such a valuation of bodily death 
tends to discredit the sufficiency of life itself as a pro- 
bation. My answer to this objection is again to call 
your attention to the significance of personal habit—I 
say personal habit, not automatic habit, but that bear- 
ing of the responsible person which results from repeated 
self-decisions and the continued narrowing of the range 
of possible motive. With this psychology of moral 
character clearly in mind, we see at once that, in any 
typical instance, it must be life and not death which 
practically determines destiny. But we can also see, I 
think, that the probational process is only fairly and 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 299 


fully completed by a last crisis in which the moral per- 
son is solemnly alone with his conscience and his entire 
history. In this last crisis the pressure toward righteous- 
ness is exhausted (if there be any possible pressure re- 
maining), and another probation beyond the grave is 
philosophically inconceivable. 

The racial fitness of bodily death does not require special 
discussion, as such a fitness is involved in what has been 
said concerning the racial nexus, racial sin, and the racial 
significance of bodily death. 


XXI. THE TEACHING OF SAINT PAUL 


A COMPREHENSIVE plan in biblical theology would 
require us to begin with the Old Testament, and then to 
study the New Testament entire, approaching it, not as 
many do through the gospels, but through the apology in 
the Epistle to the Hebrews. But for our work in system- 
atic theology the teaching of Saint Paul furnishes all the 
more important data, and no further biblical study would 
essentially change the outcome. 

Professor Denney has said: ‘‘ The doctrine of the death 
of Christ and its significance was not Saint Paul’s theology, 
it was his gospel. It was all he had to preach.” Ex- 
ception has been taken to Denney’s view, and we have 
even been told that ‘‘Christ’s death was but an incident 
in his life’; but Denney, beyond any other writer of our 
day, has understood the apostle Paul, and garnered the 
very life of the New Testament. Take out of the Pauline 
message the death of Christ, and every element of his 
teaching would become meaningless. Without his pecul- 
iar emphasis upon our Lord’s death, you cannot fully 
appreciate even Saint Paul’s practical opinions. 

“Made to be sin on our behalf.’ ‘Him who knew no 
sin he made to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5. 21). 
At the very start, we can be sure of one thing, namely, 
that duapria does not mean sin in the first clause, and 
sin offering in the second clause. It means just sim in 
each place. We can also see at once that the entire 
expression ‘‘who knew no sin’”’ is a perfect equivalent of 
this: one not a sinner. And we can keep the apostle’s 
striking contrast completely, if we consider the expres- 
sion ‘‘made to be sin’ (duagriav éroinoev) as a strong 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 301 


rhetorical equivalent of this: one made or constituted a 
sinner. Jesus Christ, then, according to Saint Paul, was 
one not a sinner and yet one constituted a sinner. This 
much seems to me to be entirely convincing. 

Now, as to this seeming contradiction, is there any 
clue? Yes, the clue is to be found in the fourteenth 
verse, “because we thus judge, that one died for all, 
therefore all died.’’ The idea here is that of substitution. 
Christ died for all, or in behalf of all (i7ép savrwv), and 
so it is really, potently, as if they died. That death of 
Christ belongs to them all as truly as if every one of them 
had died that death. They all have title-claim to the 
Lord’s death just as one has complete right to the work 
of a substitute. 

We are now thus far: Christ’s death did not belong to 
him normally, but came to him as being a substitute for 
men, as standing in the place of men. Now we are 
ready for the sharp turn. In himself, Christ was not a 
sinner, but as a substitute, standing for men, he was a 
sinner. We can now touch the root of the apostle’s con- 
ception: How could Jesus be—how was he—a substitu- 
tional sinner? Why, simply in the one fact that he died. 
Death, this bodily death, was the exact, historic, divine 
penalty for human sin; and this penalty of death came 
upon our Lord precisely as it strikes every human sinner. 
Christ was thus treated as a sinner ts treated; by substitu- 
tion he was ‘“‘numbered with the transgressors””—he was 
placed in the category of sin. And so he was nota sinner, 
and yet at the same time he was a sinner—a made, a con- 
stituted, sinner. 

“A propitiation, through faith, in hts blood.” ‘Whom 
God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in 
his blood”’ (Rom. 3. 25). Saint Paul’s surface meaning 
in this passage may be fairly rendered thus: Christ was 
set forth, openly, in his blood, to be a propitiation, 


302 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


available by faith. The crucial word is tAaorqpiov. And 
as to the meaning of the word, the exegetes have not 
been of one mind. But for their scholarly discussions 
we have no concern here. Whatever they do with the 
word, they are unable to destroy the idea of propitiation. 
As Professor Sanday says: “‘ The fundamental idea which 
underlies the word must be propitiation.” But deeply, 
what is meant by propitiation? Surely a propitiation is 
the means by which one is rendered propitious, or favorable, 
or open to plea. Inasmuch, therefore, as Saint Paul says 
that Christ was set forth, openly, in his blood, to be a 
propitiation, available by faith, the apostle’s full thought 
is, I am confident, this: The death of Jesus Christ is the 
sacrificial means by which God is rendered propitious to 
one having faith. 

We can now get the connections in Saint Paul’s mind, 
if we start with the twenty-fourth verse: “‘ Being justified 
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in 
Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, 
through faith, in his blood.” “Being justified ’—but 
how? “Freely by his grace ”—how do we get this grace? 
“Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ’’—but, 
more closely, what is meant by this redemption that is in 
Christ? The meaning is precisely this: The death of 
Christ renders God so propitious toward us that when we 
have faith in Christ set forth in his blood we can be 
justified freely by his grace. Thus, Saint Paul’s con- 
ception is that justification is explained by free grace; 
that this grace is explained as a feature of redemption; 
and that redemption is explained by the propitiatory 
death of Christ, made personally available only by 
faith. 

“ Reconciled to God through the death of his Son.” “For 
if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God 
through the death of his Son, much more, being recon- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 303 


ciled, shall we be saved by his life; and not only so, but 
we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through whom we have now received the reconciliation”’ 
(Rom. 5. 10, 11; compare with Col. 1. 21, 22, and with 
2 Cor. 5. 18, 19). The word translated “reconciliation” 
is xatadAay7; and our first question is, Does it mean 
reconciliation by means of a change taking place in men? 
or is there an actual change which takes place in God? 
From our English usage, it would, at first glance, seem as 
if the reconciliation were by a change in men, God him- 
self being favorable all the time. But our English usage 
is altogether misleading. The change is primarily in God. 
We know this conclusively for two reasons: First, this 
reconciliation, Saint Paul says, was ‘through the death 
of his Son.” And, already, in this very epistle, as we 
have seen, the apostle has taught that the death of Christ 
was a propitiation, or means of changing God, or making 
him propitious. That is, Saint Paul is but saying in a 
new way essentially what he had said before. To say 
that by the death of Christ God is made favorable to men 
is essentially the same thing as to say that by the death 
of Christ God is reconciled to men. And just as the 
propitiation becomes available by personal faith, so the 
reconciliation is completed by men becoming reconciled 
to God. Second—but we do not need to go back to the 
third chapter, for the decisive point is given in the passage 
before us. Saint Paul here tells us that “while we were 
enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of 
his Son”; and then, a bit later, that we have “now re- 
ceived the reconciliation.’’ In the first place, that is, 
before men did a thing toward it, God became reconciled 
to men by means of the death of his Son; and now we 
accept by faith the divine offer of reconciliation. 

In this connection there is one further item of im- 
portant suggestion. The fact that the reconciliation of 


304 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


God to men involves the bodily death of Christ is made 
emphatic in the Epistle to the Colossians (1. 21, 22) where 
we read: ‘And you, being in time past alienated and 
enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath 
he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.” 
Bishop Lightfoot explains the passage in this way: “In 
Christ’s body, in Christ’s flesh which died on the cross 
for your atonement, ye are reconciled to him again.” 

“That he might himself be just, and the justifier of him 
that hath faith in Fesus.” ‘To show his righteousness 
(dixarootvn), because of the passing over of the sins 
done aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the showing, 
I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that 
he might himself be just (ditatoc), and the justifier 
(dtxatéw) of him that hath faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3. 25, 
26). This remarkable passage is Saint Paul’s nearest 
approach to a philosophical doctrine of the atonement, 
and so it demands our most careful consideration. 

We notice at once that the apostle makes a distinction 
between God’s forbearance toward sinners and his justi- 
fication of sinners. This forbearance was best in times 
past; but it could not satisfy God, and so it had to be 
done away with by a very different thing, namely, by 
justification—justification by faith in harmony with 
God’s being just. ‘‘That he might himself be just, and 
the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.” 

But why does God have this end of justification in view 
at all? Why does he want, under any conditions, to 
justify the sinner? No one familiar with Saint Paul’s 
writings can possibly doubt what his answer would be— 
Because God loves the sinner. And so, in the divine 
depths, justice must be harmonized with love’s demand. 
How is this profound harmony to be secured? Saint 
Paul’s answer is this: By the manifestation of the right- 
eousness of God in the death of Christ (‘‘ for the showing, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 305 


I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he 
might himself be just, and the justifier ”’). 

Now we reach the critical point. What does Saint 
Paul mean by this righteousness of God—this dixasoovvy 
Geov? +That he does not mean bare justice is evident 
for two reasons: First, a philosophical reason. God’s 
purpose is to harmonize justice with the demand of love, 
and this harmony could not be achieved by expressing 
justice alone. Second, a biblical reason, a reason in the 
consistency of Pauline theology. Saint Paul’s own usage 
is contrary to the view that the righteousness of God 
means bare justice. Turn, for a case, to 2 Cor. 5. 21: 
“That we might become the righteousness of God in him.”’ 
We find here the same expression, dixarootvn Oeod; and 
it cannot mean justice—that we might become the 
justice of God in him. Righteousness is, I am sure, a 
larger term than justice everywhere in the Bible. Some- 
times it means moral concern; sometimes it means “the 
sum of all moral excellence’ (Sanday) ; and sometimes it 
means moral love. Speaking of this very passage in 
Romans, Professor Stevens says: “‘ Here dtxaoosvn must 
mean the self-respecting attribute of holiness in God, the 
reaction of his nature against sin which must find expres- 
sion in its condemnation. Holy love is the best definition 
of Paul’s conception of the ethical nature of God.” A 
full statement of the matter may be given as follows: 

The righteousness of God is the holiness of God, some- 
times in one bearing of emphasis and sometimes in 
another; but in the complete bearing, perfect moral love. 
And Saint Paul uses the term to express the complete 
bearing, With this understanding of the apostle’s usage, 
the great passage in Romans can be paraphrased as fol- 
lows: God cannot forever deal with sinners in a partial 
way. Sooner or later, he must satisfy himself com- 
pletely. To do this, he must, at one stroke, satisfy his 


306 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


sense of justice and his love for men. There is only one 
way to accomplish all this, and that is to express his 
entire nature as it is gathered up in holy love. This per- 
fect manifestation of holy love is in the death of Christ. 

Before going further, let us summarize what we now 
have of Saint Paul’s teaching: 

1. Jesus Christ was constituted a sinner in our behalf 
by the simple fact that he died a bodily death, and so bore 
the exact historical penalty which belongs to man. He 
was a sinner by substitution. 

~». 2. By bearing this penalty of death Christ rendered 

“Bod propitious; or he reconciled God to man, so that 
individual justification by faith became possible and 
ready. 

3. The reason why the death of Christ was such a 
propitiation, or means of reconciliation, was that it 
satisfied, at one stroke, God’s inherent sense of justice 
and his boundless feeling of love for men. 

4. And, last, the reason the death of Christ could do 
such work in harmony, could satisfy God’s sense of justice 
and his feeling of love, was that it manifested the divine 
moral love which is the holiness of God, the entire ethical 
nature of God, consummated in the perfection of the 
divine personal experience. In the death of Christ God 
ceases to express fragments toward men, and manifests 
all he is. And by manifesting all he is, he is supremely 
satisfied. 

‘A people for his own possession.” ‘Looking for the 
blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God 
and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, 
that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify 
unto himself a people for his own possession” (Titus 2. 
13, 14). In this passage Saint Paul passes clearly from 
the idea of redemption from iniquity to the idea of 
Christ’s obtainment of a holy people for himself. The 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 307 


same thought appears in Rom. 8. 29—‘‘that he might be 
the firstborn among many brethren.’’ Besides this, under 
the conception of Christ as the second Adam, there is the 
thought that our Lord’s redemptive work is to result in a 
holy company of men. Besides all this, and in deep as- 
sociation with it, is Saint Paul’s conception of a glorious 
church, “holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5. 27), which 
Christ gave himself up for, and which he nourishes and 
cherishes, ‘‘ because we are members of his body.” All 
these teachings indicate plainly that redemption through 
the death of Christ, as Saint Paul understands it, is to have 
a great social outcome. Jesus Christ does not die to smite 
sin in the abstract, nor to save, here and there, an isolated 
moral person ; he dies to obtain a people, a church, a holy 
community, so perfectly inherent in him that he and they 
constitute one body. 

We have the same idea of a holy social organism in 
many places in the New Testament, and it is especially 
noticeable in our Saviour’s last prayer, “that they may 
be one, even as we are one”’ (Saint John 17. 22); but here I 
desire only to bring out the social expansion of Saint 
Paul’s central conception of the redemptional significance 
of the death of Christ. By his death our Lord not only 
reconciles God to man, and renders possible the justifica- 
tion of the separate sinner, but also obtains a people for 
his Own possession. 

“That Fesus died and rose again.” “For if we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that 
are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him” 
(1 Thess. 4. 14). This association of our Lord’s death 
with his resurrection is often found in Saint Paul’s mind. 
It is found in Rom. 4. 25, where Jesus is spoken of as 
“delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justi- 
fication.’”’ It is found in that great fifteenth chapter of 
1 Corinthians, where the apostle says: “For I delivered 


308 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ 
died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he 
hath been raised on the third day.’”’ And it is also found 
in 2 Corinthians (5. 15), where Saint Paul says of our 
Lord and his people “‘that they that live should no longer 
live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes 
died and rose again.”” By studying all of these passages 
in their full connections it will be clearly seen that in 
Saint Paul’s thinking our Saviour’s resurrection is not 
merely an event which historically follows his death, it 
is an event which teleologically follows his death in the 
plan of redemption. 

‘Conformed to the body of his glory.” ‘For our citizen- 
ship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the 
Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of 
our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of 
his glory, according to the working whereby he is able 
even to subject all things unto himself” (Phil. 3. 20, 21). 
This passage is of the most intense interest. Speaking 
of this passage, in his treatise on Immortality, Cyprian 
exclaims, Who would not crave ‘‘to arrive more quickly 
to the dignity’! It is in this very epistle to the Phi- 
lippians, in the chapter before, that we have Saint Paul’s 
most extended reference to the Incarnation. Evidently 
he looks upon our Lord’s body there as merely a part of 
that humiliation which was completed in his being 
“obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” 
The natural body of Jesus had no significance to Saint 
Paul save as it was the instrument of a supreme ethical 
self-sacrifice. But how exceedingly different is Saint 
Paul’s conception of the significance of our Lord’s body 
of glory! That is the type according to which shall he 
fashioned all the final, glorious bodies of his own 
people. 

Now I will give, as I understand it, the closer inter- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 309 


lacing of the most important features of Saint Paul's 
entire view of our Lord’s redemptive work: 

1. Jesus Christ died. In this bodily death our Saviour 
bore the exact, historic, divine penalty for man’s sin, and 
therefore was a sinner in category, or a sinner by sub- 
stitution. Bearing this penalty of death, our Saviour 
satisfied the holiness of God by fully expressing that 
holiness in its personal consummation of moral love. By 
thus satisfying the divine holiness Christ rendered God 
ethically open to the possibility of justification conditioned 
on faith. 

2. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. By this event of 
his resurrection our Lord made justification more than 
possible—he made it redemptionally feasible. And 
through this process of justification actually carried out 
our Lord is gradually forming, person by person, believer 
by believer, a new spiritual community—a people organic 
in him—roic év yoror@ "Inoov—one body in vitality of 
moral life, in identity of aim, and in the service and 
fellowship of love. 

3. Jesus Christ rose from the dead with a glorified body. 
This spiritual community of saints who live in Christ is 
to be objectively completed in their organism when, in 
their resurrection, every one of them shall take on, not 
the body of the grave, but a spiritual body “conformed 
to the body of his glory.”” The saints are to be like 
Christ, not only in moral person, but also in their actual 
bodily life. 


XXII. OUR LORD’S STRANGE HESITATION IN 
APPROACHING DEATH 


His Primary Attitude. The strangeness of our Lord’s 
hesitation will stand out more clearly, if we first notice 
his primary attitude, or the way that he as Redeemer 
looked upon his own death. 

1. He did not regard his death as a natural incident 
terminating life; nor as an accident resulting from the 
disposition and deed of man. After the confession of 
Saint Peter (‘‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God”’) our Lord began definitely to speak of his coming 
death: ‘“‘From that time began Jesus to show unto his 
disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer 
many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, 
and be killed, and the third day be raised up” (Saint Matt. 
16. 21; compare with Saint Mark ro. 33). The expression 
“that he must’’ (67 dei adrov) cannot mean that the 
circumstances, the hostile forces against him, render his 
death inevitable. We are certain of this point for several 
reasons: First, the rebuke to Peter implies that the must 
is moral. Second, such statements as that in the tenth 
chapter of Saint John (‘I have power to lay it down, and 
I have power to take it again’’) show that Jesus regarded 
his death as a matter entirely within his own control. 
Third, the scene in Gethsemane further shows that Jesus 
regarded his death as finally a pure question of obedience 
to his Father (also compare with Saint John 10. 18). It 
is, then, beyond a doubt that our Saviour did not look 
upon his death as incident or accident, but did look upon 
it as a moral necessity, as an essential feature of his 
mission of redemption. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 31 


2. More precisely, our Lord regarded his death as a 
means of ransom for men. In Saint Mark’s gospel (10. 45) 
we read: ‘For the Son of man also came not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ran- 
som for many.”’ This passage has been dealt with by 
Dr. Hollmann in a most radical fashion. The dvri 
moaaav he separates from At’rpov and connects with 
dovvaz, The term Adteov he renders freeing (Befreiung). 
With these radical changes, Hollmann makes the passage 
mean no more than this: ‘‘To free men from their stub- 
born pride and bring them to the spirit of repentance, 
Jesus gives up his life instead of many being obliged 
to give up their lives.” If this arbitrary ingenuity is 
“advanced New Testament scholarship,’ then we must 
look toward the immediate future of the Christian church 
with deepening dread. But I have brought up this ex- 
tremely radical interpretation by Hollmann to indicate 
how impossible it is to empty our Saviour’s conception 
of his death of all redemptional meaning. Even in this 
comparative moral emptiness furnished by Hollmann, 
Jesus Christ considers his death as very important for 
the spiritual liberation of men. 

3. Our Lord regarded his death as a covenant. At 
this point, again, there is such destructive work in crit- 
icism that in systematic theology, anyway, it is best to 
wait until some of the rationalistic caprice ‘“‘is blown 
into the sea,’”’ before we try to do any thorough work. 
But we can easily get at a fragment of affirmation. 
Professor McGiffert says: ‘‘ There can be no doubt that 
Jesus ate the Last Supper with his disciples, as recorded 
in all three of the synoptic gospels, and that he said of 
the bread which he broke and gave to his companions, 
‘This is my body,’ and of the wine which he gave them to 
drink, ‘This is my blood of the covenant which is shed 
for many,’ and that he did it with a reference to his 


312 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


approaching death.” Let us for the present be content 
and ask for no larger admission. What is the meaning 
of that expression “‘blood of the covenant”? Probably 
it refers back to the words in Jeremiah (31. 31-34): “ Be- 
hold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a 
new covenant: . . . for I will forgive their iniquity, and 
their sin will I remember no more.’’ This much, then, 
we can affirm: Our Lord, at the Last Supper, looked upon 
his death as the instrumental establishment of the prophe- 
sied new covenant of grace under which sin could be 
forgiven. 

Our Lord’s Hesitation. We are now prepared to note 
the strangeness of our Saviour’s hesitation when in the 
garden he cried out: “My Father, if it be possible, let 
this cup pass away from me.’ If, in his primary atti- 
tude, our Lord regarded his death as an essential feature 
of the very plan of redemption for which he came into 
the world; if he regarded his death as not merely impor- 
tant, but even the definite means of man’s ransom; and if 
he regarded this ransoming death as the actual inaugura- 
tion of the new covenant and dispensation of grace; if, 
in other words, every redemptional thing Christ was 
aiming to do was, in his own estimate, to be achieved 
only and precisely by his death, how could he, as Son of 
God and Redeemer of men, hesitate, actually shrink back 
from that death? Superficially, one would expect that 
our Lord would approach death with solemn moral 
eagerness, if not with such a spirit of joyous triumph as 
that which made Saint Paul so ready to be offered. 

Inadequate Explanations. Of this hesitation there have 
been a number of purely humanitarian and rationalistic 
explanations: By Thiess, that Jesus was suddenly “at- 
tacked by some melady”’; by Heumann, that “in addition 
to his inward sorrow Jesus had contracted a cold in the 
clayey ground traversed by the Kidron’’; by Strauss, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 313 


that “Jesus on that evening in the garden experienced a 
violent access of fear’’; and by Renan—one refuses to 
translate the sentimental indecency. 

But a very different kind of an explanation, both in 
spirit and in fact, is that given suggestively by Principal 
Fairbairn in his Philosophy of the Christian Religion. 
He says: 

“And Gethsemane represents the struggle of Jesus 
with the new problem which thus came before his im- 
agination personified in Judas and the priests, and which 
he had to solve in the very face, if not in the very article, 
of death. 

“And what was this new problem? Jesus was holy, 
and felt as only the sinless can the stain of sin burn like 
a living fire upon his soul. He had conceived himself 
as a Redeemer by the sacrifice of himself, as a Saviour 
by death. But now, when he comes face to face with 
this death, what does he find? That sin has taken oc- 
casion from his very grace to become more exceedingly 
sinful, to mix itself up with his sacrifice, penetrating and 
effacing it, transmuting it from a free and gracious act 
into a violent and necessitated death. His act of re- 
demption becomes, so to say, the opportunity for sin to 
increase. The thing he most hates seems to become a 
partner with him in the work he most loves, contributing 
to its climax and consummation. Or, if not so con- 
ceived, it must be conceived under a still more dreadful 
form, as forcing itself into his way, taking possession of 
his work, turning it into ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock 
of offense,’ a means of creating sinners while it had been 
intended to save from sin. And there was an even more 
intolerable element in the situation: the men who were 
combining to effect this death were persons he was dying 
to save, and by their action they were making the saving 
a matter more infinitely hard, more vastly improbable, 


314 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


and changing the efficient cause of salvation into a suffi- 
cient reason for judgment. . . . From death as such he 
does not shrink, but from its mode and agencies, from 
death under the form and conditions which involve its 
authors in what appears inexpiable guilt, his whole 
nature recoils.” 

The spirit of this explanation is so large and sincere 
that one dislikes to make any criticism. But there are 
very serious objections, two of which I will indicate: 
First, there is, under the explanation, a confusing of sin 
with the expression of sin in crime. Sin is causal to 
crime, but crime is not causal to sin. From the stand- 
point of fundamental reality, the most dreadful thing, 
as far as those leaders who brought about the death of 
Christ were concerned, was not the crucifixion itself, but 
the fact that they were the kind of men they were. And 
a study of the life of Christ shows that he, long before, 
knew all about them. While he pitied the deluded and 
managed people, he branded the leaders with fiery 
invective. Second, the explanation is redemptionally 
superficial. It lies, like a sentimentality, on the surface 
of the awful deeps of redemption. That the Eternal 
Son of God could come into this world at infinite cost in 
self-sacrifice because of sin—‘‘whole ages upon ages of 
bottomless sin’’—and then, at the crucial point of his 
atonement for that sin, could have his redemptional con- 
sciousness exclusively occupied with one phase, one local 
item of the huge chaos of wrong, is to me entirely incon- 
ceivable. Principal Fairbairn is too profound a Christian 
thinker to be long satisfied with his own explanation. 

The Clue to the Hesitation. When we read the account 
of our Lord’s crucifixion, the clue to the hesitation be- 
comes evident. It is in those words of agony: “ My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”’ Long before we 
have any heart to try to understand the meaning of 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 315 


these words of agony, we feel sure that they indicate the 
“cup” which Jesus Christ dreaded to empty. We feel 
sure of this because the two notes of agony, that of the 
prayer in the garden and that of the cry upon the cross, 
have the same intense spiritual accent, and the same in- 
definable suggestion of the depth of redemption. 


XXIII. THE RACIAL THEORY OF OUR iran 
REDEMPTIVE WORK |» 


It may be helpful, as an introduction, to indicate the 
steps by which this racial theory was reached. 

1. For twelve years I had a double attitude toward 
the three great historic theories of the atonement: On 
the one side, I was sure that they all were alike untrue 
to both the biblical data and the deepest Christian feeling. 
On the other side, I was just as sure that every one of the 
theories had a quality, if not a definite point, which should 
be preserved at any cost. 

2. For six years I tried to preserve these three im- 
portant qualities by the method of eclectic synthesis; 
but the result was so mechanical that I was at last obliged 
to throw it away. 

3. I had become hopeless, when there suddenly came 
to me a vision of the full Christian meaning of the human 
race. This vision not only vitalized, but actually trans- 
formed, my entire theological situation. I saw not 
merely the atonement, but every doctrine, and the total 
combination of doctrine, in a new light. From that 
supreme hour (on one of the hills near Marburg) my one 
aim has been to get that racial vision into living ex- 
pression. 

4. My main work, after the vision, was to study the 
Bible more profoundly ; and the consequence of this study 
was threefold: First, a realization of our Lord’s bearing 
toward the one event of his bodily death. Second, a 
realization of the tremendous emphasis which the Bible 
places upon physical death as an abnormal human ex- 
perience, Third, a realization that Saint Paul has in 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 317 


his teaching the very backbone of a racial view of our 
Saviour’s redemptive work. 

5. Then I took the old theories in hand to see how 
much could be saved. And, to my astonishment, I 
found that the three qualities which had appealed to me 
could be preserved by a larger treatment from the racial 
standpoint. The satisfaction theory required that the 
attribute of justice should be exchanged for holiness, and 
that the idea of automatic necessity should be exchanged 
for the idea of a personal need of structural expression. 
The governmental theory required that there should be 
a profounder conception of the moral law, making it 
reach into the structure of the divine nature; and that the 
moral government should be granted a racial goal; and 
that penalty should be made a means of holy movement 
toward the racial goal. The moral influence theory re- 
quired that its conception of love should be so united to 
moral concern as to furnish a new atmosphere of divine 
holiness. If I understand the underlying intention of 
such men as Anselm, Grotius, and Abelard, as Hodge, 
Miley, and Bushnell, the racial theory has caught the 
soul of all the theories. And, if I understand the New 
Testament, the racial theory has caught not only its 
formal teaching, but even its inner life. 

The Purpose of God in Redemption. At the very 
beginning we need to clear the way by answering the 
simple question, What was God’s primary purpose— 
what was he trying to do in redemption? There is, | am 
satisfied, only one final answer possible : To obtain a race of 
holy persons. He was not trying to get, here and yonder, 
a separate moral person ready to enjoy the divine glory. 
No, God wanted an entangled race—a personal organism 
of holy men—that was God’s aim. In other words, God’s 
purpose was the same in redemption that it had been in 
creation. The first plan, the ideal plan, failed because of 


318 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


sin; but this failure is now, in redemption, to be made 
over into a triumph. Out of the Adamic race, broken in 
organism, and doomed to destruction as a race, the work 
of Christ is to secure a new race completely personal, com- 
pletely organic, and completely holy. Thus, the dis- 
tinctive note in all we do must be racial. We do not 
drop the note of the moral person at all, but our outcome 
must be emphatically a racial redemption. This in- 
sistence is not a matter of mere words, it is the very core 
of the case. With this outcome in full view, a certain 
change of emphasis naturally takes place. The atone- 
ment itself, as a means to a large racial result, is to be 
treated as only one necessary feature of the entire re- 
demptive work of our Lord. Such a connective treat- 
ment does not, in reality, minimize the doctrine of the 
atonement, but it does prevent the extreme and isolated 
emphasis which is found in theological works of a certain 
type. 

The Dynamic Center of the New Race. It is not neces- 
sary to repeat what was said, in another discussion, con- 
cerning the racial peculiarity of the Son of man. Nor is 
it necessary again to affirm that the Incarnation was an 
abnormal event entirely due to man’s sin, and in definite 
preparation for the atonement by the death of Christ. 
But what I said before was fragmentary. The Incarna- 
tion was more than a preparation for the atonement; 
it was also the provision of a dynamic center for the new 
race. Allow me to go back for a moment to the principle 
of individual supplement or complement (‘“‘The Racial 
Organism”). When all the saints have done their ut- 
most to render every member of the race complete, the 
completion is not entirely effected. Men are made ab- 
solutely complete only through each other, and in Christ. 
The finishing dynamic help comes only from the racial 
center, and that center is our Lord, Wecannot now 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 319 


dwell upon this wonderful point ; but we need the mention 
of it that we may appreciate the significance of the suffer- 
ing of Jesus. The experience of Jesus Christ cannot be 
fully understood from the standpoint of the single fact of 
the atonement; to that single fact must be added the 
further fact that he is, in all and through all, preparing 
himself by suffering to be the everlasting race center, 
the everlasting racial dynamic, the everlasting moral 
influence. By means of his humiliation, our Lord obtains 
that exhaustive human experience which perfects his 
racial efficiency. As the reservoir of supplement, so to 
speak, he has after the resurrection not only the power 
of God, but that sympathetic comprehension of the need 
of every man which could come to him only by suffering 
for men, with men, and as God become man. 

The Absolute Necessity of Atonement. The ultimate 
purpose of Jesus Christ is to secure a new race of holy 
men; but before he can found this race he must make 
atonement for humansin. Is such an atonement an abso- 
lute necessity? or is it a relative expedient, either to 
protect moral government or to create a moral influence 
sufficient to move the sinner? The last two views I place 
together because philosophically they belong together. 
Practically they are not in the least alike. But philosoph- 
ically they are alike; for in each theory the atonement is 
an expedient to produce influence, in one case an influence 
to act upon the saint, or upon the saint and the sinner ; 
and in the other case an influence to act upon the sinner 
alone. Thus both views are essentially utilitarian. And 
because they are utilitarian I must regard them as super- 
ficial. The atonement for sin was an absolute necessity— 
absolute in the sense that the primary demand for it is 
in God’s own nature: is not in God merely as he is out 
there, in relation to man; but is in God as he is 1m there, 
without any objective relations whatever. 


320 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


More definitely, my view of the necessity of atone- 
ment is just as rigid as that held in the satisfaction theory. 
The pure satisfactionist holds that the satisfaction of 
justice, by the full expression of it, is absolutely necessary 
in the very constitution of the Divine Being. I hold that 
the satisfaction of holiness, by the full expression of it, 
is absolutely necessary in the very constitution of the 
Divine Being personalized. The further question whether 
the self-sacrifice of the Son of God was so absolutely 
necessary that nothing else could have taken its place is to 
be answered without hesitation in the affirmative. For 
it is inconceivable that a method so costly would have 
been chosen could God have entirely expressed his holi- 
ness in any other way. 

Now we can come a little closer to our pivotal conten- 
tion. With sin a fact, the situation is abnormal, ren- 
dering the complete expression of holiness, that is, the 
expression of moral love, for the time impossible. In 
such a situation God’s holiness is expressed, but it is 
expressed by the most tremendous emphasis upon moral 
concern. The love of God cannot appear without an 
ethical basis firmly fixed. This emphasis upon moral 
concern is precisely what we find before the atonement is 
made. The destruction of the Adamic race by the ab- 
normal method of death is the expression of God’s moral 
concern, or of his eternal hatred of sin. In bodily death, 
considered alone, God does not say, “I love men’’—he 
says only, ‘I hate sin.” 

The pivotal point can now be given. It is this: In 
establishing a new race, in a situation still abnormal with 
sin, the holiness of God must be as fully expressed in moral 
concern as it was expressed by the destruction of the old 
race. There must be complete ethical continuity between 
the two racial events. Not one step can be taken toward 
the final expression of moral love until there is as much 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 321 


hatred of sin manifested as was manifested before. This 
is only saying that in all situations God must be true to 
the law of holiness. 

The Death of Christ. On the surface we have the 
physical fact of our Lord’s death. In this bodily death 
he bore the precise racial penalty. Many contend that 
there could be nothing penal in the death of Jesus simply 
because he was not guilty. ‘Nor was Jesus punished 
for man’s sin, he suffered for it. He could not be punished, 
for he was not guilty.” Such a contention is properly 
made; but it lacks in discrimination, and it also lacks 
in any full understanding of the apostle Paul. Jesus 
Christ was not personally a sinner, and was not personaily 
punished ; that is certain. But, on the other hand, his 
suffering was not ordinary individual suffering—i was 
official, representative suffering. He suffered, as the Race- 
Man, for the whole race. He carried the race an his con- 
sciousness. Thus, Christ’s death is a racial event from 
the double fact that he bears the racial penalty against 
the old race and that he is the racial center of the new 
race. And whether we consider the dying Saviour a 
sinner or not, depends entirely upon our point of view. 
From the Arminian standpoint of personal sin, he surely 
was not a sinner. Nor was he a sinner from the stand- 
point of depravity. But from the racial standpoint he 
was a sinner, because he stood for the race, and allowed 
himself to be shut into its category, and actually bore the 
racial penalty, actually died, and was broken off from the 
race like any son of Adam. It matters not so much 
about the words you use, though, if you only catch and 
firmly hold the idea that our Lord’s death was a racial 
event through and through. 

But this surface fact of physical death has also with 
our Lord a personal feature involved. By death he was 
not only separated from men, but also thrust into per- 


322 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


sonal isolation. He, like any sinner, experienced the 
awful loneliness of death. He, too, entered the “‘cham- 
ber of silence’? companionless. ‘“‘But Christ was too 
strong, too regnant in personal resources, to feel such 
loneliness.”” My reply is not merely that our Lord had 
all natural capacity for human feelings, and not merely 
that the objection implies a misunderstanding of the 
nature of personality—my reply is that our Lord had, 
before his death, manifested an intense sensitiveness to 
personal loneliness: ‘“‘ What, could ye not watch with me 
one hour?” 

With our Saviour, however, this personal isolation 
would not have been actual had he been able to find 
fellowship with his Father, but his Father had forsaken 
him. I dare not be ingenious and accommodating here— 
I must take these words to mean that God the Father 
was literally absent from the consciousness of his only 
Son. And, further, I think that the Christian conscious- 
ness will never allow the critical mangling of the text. 
The utterance, just as it stands, answers to the intuitive 
demand of the profoundest Christian experience. A 
sinner saved by grace shrinks back from the awful words, 
but in his heart he is certain that his redemption cost all 
that. The Eternal Father abandoned his own Son and 
allowed him to pass through death all alone. 

There has been in theology a long discussion as to 
whether this divine abandonment was real, or only 
apparent—whether it shows the Father’s personal attitude 
toward his Son, or shows a confusion of mind in the 
Saviour resulting from his terrible experience. But the 
entire discussion is on the surface. Under pressure, the 
two views amount practically to the same thing. The 
psychology of the terrible abandonment has no Christian, 
no redemptional import whatever. Suppose there was 
the mental confusion, and Jesus simply could not find 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 323 


his Father—then the Father allowed that confusion; the 
fact of the dreadful isolation was secured in the plan for 
it, and so the abandonment does express the Father’s 
attitude toward his dying Son. In such a dire situation 
we are unwilling to spin our fine distinction between a 
bearing of sufferance and a bearing of exertion, for both 
bearings express, and equally express, intention. Do you 
all see it? Do you feel it? Suppose (to inflame the 
point) that a strong man and his child are standing on the 
brink of a precipice. The child is confused, cannot find 
the father’s hand, and in an instant will fall over into the 
abyss. The father, standing there in his power, sees 
everything, and yet does not reach out and grasp the 
child’s groping hand—the illustration is exceedingly inad- 
equate, but it does suggest a situation where no one would 
be allowed to urge the difference between a bearing of 
sufferance and a bearing of actual exertion. The plain 
fact is that God the Father intended that his Son should 
pass through this awful experience of isolation, and had 
insisted upon it in the garden. With his Son he was 
ever well pleased; but now his Son does not stand in his 
own single selfhood. His Son is the Redeemer, the 
representative Race-Man, standing in death for a race of 
sinners, and the Father’s attitude is an attitude of holiness 
toward the entangled entirety of the atoning situation. 
I am, after long, shrinking hesitation, unable to escape 
the conclusion that the Son of God, as the racial Mediator, 
met in the beginning of the isolation of his death the 
whole shock of the wrath of God against sin, that he was 
treated precisely as any sinner is treated. His death was 
more than the tearing apart of body and soul; his death 
had in its experience the extreme ethical content of per- 
sonal isolation. 

John Calvin taught that our Saviour in his soul ex- 
perienced the anguish of the damned (“quod diros im 


324 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


anima crucriatus damnati ac perditi hominis pertulerit’’). 
This view is to us impossible if held, as it was held by 
Calvin and others, under the terms of the satisfaction 
theory. Nor can we hold the view as an explanation of 
our Lord’s ‘descent into hell.” But Calvin’s primary 
feeling here, if not his theological insight, was profoundly 
Christian. Indeed, the day is sure to come when all of 
Calvin's deep Christian vitalities will be sharply separated 
from his formal contentions. John Calvin himself was 
much greater than his scheme of theology. I am con- 
vinced that Jesus Christ in his death actually suffered 
infinite anguish. Toward this conviction I was started 
by Calvin, but not alone by him. Fora long time before 
reading Calvin I had been growing dissatisfied with all 
the little things which modern theologians are saying 
about the death of Christ. It is the death of the Son of 
God. It must be lifted totally out of the world of hu- 
manitarian mitigation. It must be made a boundless 
agony in the experience of God himself. It must be 
made such a finality in awful self-sacrifice that no Chris- 
tian man, and no saint in all eternity, can ever think of it 
without suffering. 

But we are told that Christ, inasmuch as he had no 
consciousness of guilt, could not suffer even as much as 
one unrepentant sinner will suffer. At first this seemed 
to me to be a point beyond question ; but a larger contact 
with the facts of life has led me to doubt the point. 
Even among men, it is not the guilty man who suffers the 
most, but rather the innocent friend who loves him and 
wants to save him. Surely the friend cannot feel guilty 
himself, but he can, in love and self-sacrifice and full 
contact with the sinner, have something which the 
sinner cannot have—purity’s complete realization of the 
condition and penalty and endless ruin of sin. This, 
however, is but a suggestion to prepare us to look more 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 325 


closely; and to appreciate more thoroughly our Lord’s 
openness to anguish over human sin. Let us carefully 
note the combination of qualities and relations. As God, 
our Lord had a capacity constantly available for the 
intuitive seizure and mental comprehension of all reality 
and all possibility. As God become man, he was abso- 
lutely sinless and absolutely sensitive to even the faintest 
touch of evil. As the Race-Man, he gathered up into 
his consciousness the whole human race, so that mankind 
was almost a part of his very being. As Redeemer, he 
had come, with infinite love and at infinite cost, to save 
men from sin. And now, with this combination of 
qualities and relations—divine, human, racial, and re- 
demptional—our Lord, without the fellowship of his 
Father, is by his death brought into empiric contact with 
the penalty and meaning of sin. Are we ourselves, with 
the intuitions of grace, not able, in some small degree of 
apprehension, to lay hold of the inner event? The Son 
of God, as Redeemer making atonement for sin, and as 
the Founder of a new race of redeemed men, will fully ex- 
haust the possibilities of suffering, not merely the suffering 
possible to finite men, but even the suffering possible to 
the infinite God in human limitation. And so, there 
alone, our Lord opens his mind, his heart, his personal 
consciousness, to the whole inflow of the horror of sin— 
the endless history of it, from the first choice of selfishness 
on, on to the eternity of hell; the boundless ocean of its 
isolation and desolation he allows, wave upon wave, to 
overwhelm his soul. 

The Complete Expression of the Holiness of God. When 
we remember who our Lord is, the only-begotten Son of 
God the Father; when we realize that the Father “spared 
not”’ his own Son, but delivered him up to this awful ex- 
perience in death, surely we can begin to feel the ethzcal 
intensity of the entire redemptional deed. By this sacri- 


326 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


fice of his Son God’s relentless hatred of sin is expressed 
as it could not be expressed by the total annihilation of a 
universe of sinners. The death of Christ does not, could 
not, express justice of any kind, or in any degree what- 
soever. Never can you understand the death of Christ 
if you cling to that vitiating idea of justice. But the 
death of our Lord does express moral concern, does show 
that God cares tremendously about sin. It is not a single 
item, but the combination—the absolute deity of our 
Saviour; his personal preéxistence in the eternal glory of 
the Godhead; his personal obedience in giving up that 
divine estate; his continued obedience even while shrink- 
ing back from the rending and isolation and divine aban- 
donment and infinite anguish of death; the Father’s 
exhaustless love for his only Son; the Father’s profound 
need of his Son for full personal fellowship; and yet the 
Father’s unremitting insistence that redemption shall be 
accomplished only by this measureless humiliation of his 
Son and sacrifice of himself—it is this combination which 
steeps the whole deed with intense ethical quality. One 
drop of humanitarianism; one drop of unitarianism, any 
form of unitarianism; one drop of agnostic Ritschlianism ; 
one drop of even vagueness as to full self-consciousness 
in the persons of the Trinity, and the ethical quality is 
almost sure to vanish instantly. In one sentence, we 
may say that it is the dwine tenacity in holding fast to the 
total penal event of death at such infinite cost in self-con- 
scious self-sacrifice—it is this tenacity of God so expensive 
personally which reveals his moral concern. 

This supreme revelation of bare moral concern is what 
we find when we consider the death of Christ out of its 
teleological connection, or when we consider it as merely 
an atonement for human sin. But the atonement itself 
is not an end, but a means to anend. The end is the ex- 
pression of the moral love of God, or the expression of the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 327 


fullness of the divine holiness in a race of redeemed men. 
Jesus Christ does not die to satisfy moral concern, he dies 
to satisfy moral concern in order that he may be the 
organizer of a new race. His death is an actual move- 
ment in penalty toward the racial goal. In treatment of 
this penal movement toward the goal, one can immedi- 
ately make use of important features of the governmental 
theory and the moral influence theory; but these features 
should be torn out of their utilitarian setting of expediency. 
God’s only aim and only method is to express all he 
himself is in holiness. Utility is never planned, and yet 
utility is necessarily involved. Every movement toward 
perfect manifestation of holiness is as resultant of more 
practical utility as every larger shining of the sun is 
resultant of more heat. What we need is simply God, 
God out, God entirely manifest in our sky. Such a 
manifestation means necessarily all moral potency, all 
moral support, all practical interests. God is not like 
a finite Ruler ever balancing efficiencies, ever ponder- 
ing expedients. His life is one harmonious intuitional 
experience crowded with complex deposits of related 
attributes; and his one perpetual purpose is to satisfy 
himself by expressing all that he is. In a situation ab- 
normal because of man’s freedom and sin, such a com- 
plete divine expression may become temporarily unteas- 
ible or impossible ; in such case God’s immediate aim is to 
move toward the complete goal by expressing his funda- 
mental holiness in moral concern. The history of re- 
demption, in its sweep of divine action, may be conceived 
in this manner: First, there is an ethical start in racial 
death. Second, there is an effective ethical movement 
in the death of Christ. Third, there is a racial start in 
the resurrection and ascension and session of our Lord. 
Fourth, there is an effective racial movement in the 
actual formation of the new race by the conversion of 


328 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


moral persons. Fifth, the holy racial goal is reached when 
the redeemed race, expressing the moral love of God, is 
completed in organism at the final resurrection of the body. 

The Atonement. The atonement is precisely in the 
death of Christ, because it is the death of Christ which 
ethically meets and covers the obstacle of human sin. 
Thus, we may truly say that the death of Christ propiti- 
ates God, or reconciles God to mankind, or is a moral 
satisfaction rendered unto God’s holy nature. Or, we 
can state the matter thus: Because God is holy he hates 
sin. Because he hates sin, the expression of that hatred 
is fundamental to any expression of God whatsoever. 
The death of Christ is the fundamental and exhaustive 
expression of God’s hatred of sin. But, as I have inti- 
mated in several places, the death of Christ does not 
satisfy God, or reconcile God, or propitiate God, as an 
isolated expression of the divine hatred of sin. To grant 
that point would, as you can readily see, imply that there 
was an atoning efficiency in the inauguration of racial 
~ death: for racial death also expresses God’s intense 
hatred of sin. The death of Christ satisfies God because 
it is an emphasis upon moral concern unto the actual 
salvation of the human race asa race. The event of racial 
death could not satisfy God, and simply because it lacked 
the tremendous redemptional potencies and racial con- 
nections which belong to the death of our Lord. Racial 
death is a start in moral emphasis, but it has no speed, no 
possibility of ever touching the goal. The death of Christ 
is, on the contrary, a swift, urgent movement toward 
the actual expression of moral love in a race of redeemed 
men. Thus, the divine satisfaction is not in the pure 
moral stress of the atonement, but rather in the total con- 
tent and bearing of the atonement as a potent ethical em- 
phasis rapidly provisional for the ultimate manifestation 
of all God is. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 329 


Definition. 

_ Jesus Christ, as the representative Race-Man, endured in his 
death the precise racial penalty for human sin, and by the total 
event and experience under that penalty so expressed God’s 
hatred of sin as to render possible the immediate foundation 

_ and gradual formation of a new race of men which shall at last 
perfectly manifest the moral love of God. The atonement is 
exactly in the death of Christ, if regarded in this comprehensive 
racial way. 


Founding the New Race. The resurrection of our Lord 
has a racial significance of much larger Christian conse- 
quence than its bearing upon the doctrine of personal 
immortality. Indeed, the idea of personal immortality is 
but a small item in the Christian conception of the future 
life. The racial significance of Christ’s resurrection lies 
in two things: First, our Lord in his resurrection com- 
pleted that human experience which prepared him to be 
the dynamic center of the new race. Second, our Lord 
in his resurrection obtained that ‘‘body of glory” which 
is the type-model for the spiritual body of every member 
of the newrace. Thus, by our Saviour’s resurrection the 
racial center of organism becomes a finished fact. 

Saint Paul is constantly inclined to relate the resur- 
rection of Christ to our justification. For instance, in 
Rom. 4. 25 we read: ‘Who was delivered up for our 
trespasses, and was raised for our justification.” This 
fits into what I have said about the connectional import 
of the death of Christ. His death reaches into the resur- 
rection to obtain its redemptional feasibility. The racial 
center must be finished by our Lord’s resurrection before 
it is feasible to justify men and thus constitute them 
members of the redemptional organism. 

The ascension of our Lord is sometimes considered as 
the culmination of the resurrection; but it is better to 
regard it as the formal historic induction into the racial 
office of session. All such formal historic events (the 


330 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


session, final judgment, etc.) are out of harmony with 
the present drift in theology, but they must be recognized, 
I believe, as real objective crises in the process of salva- 
tion. Even if the Scripture language is panoramic, it is 
panoramic of actual formal history. The session of our 
Lord is as truly outward history as is his birth or death. 
In the New Testament, and especially in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, reference is often made to the session of our 
Lord; but it is Saint Paul who brings out clearly the in- 
tercessory nature of the office. His words are (Rom. 8. 
34): “Who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
intercession for us.’”’ By this I understand that Christ is 
become the perpetual Mediator between God and mankind. 
As he has redeemed the race, and is now the center and 
head of the redeemed race, it is through him—he is the 
standpoint from which all human affairs are viewed. 
Before this, all was tentative and provisional; but now 
every human person and every human action and every 
human experience—all are tested squarely and completely 
by their relation to the person and work of Jesus Christ. 
The whole world is now other to God because of what 
Christ has done and because of what Christ is. Thus, 
Christ is ‘seated at the right hand of God,” that is, ex- 
alted to the throne of divine power; thus, we are forgiven 
for Christ’s sake ; and thus, prayer is made in Christ’s name. 

We have, then, in the redemptive work of our Lord 
a connected series of racial deeds: 

1. The Incarnation, by which the Son of God becomes 
the Race-Man. { 

2. The Death of Christ, by which he bears the racial 
penalty and makes atonement for sin. 

3. Te Resurrection, by which our Lord founds the new 
race of redemption. 

4. The Ascension, by which our Lord is inducted into 
the racial office of mediation. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 331 


5. The Session, by which our Lord is the mediatorial 
authority in the actual building of the new race and the 
final judge in determining the destiny of every human 
being. 

Building the New Race. An atonement has been made 
for man’s sin; the new race has been founded; and Jesus 
Christ is established in his mediatorial office. With all 
this done, there now begins the actual building of the 
new race, by saving men one by one through Jesus Christ. 
In a sense precise and full there was no Christian ex- 
perience before the ascension of our Lord; also in a sense 
precise and full there is not and never can be any Chris- 
tian experience where there is no faith in Christ as a 
personal Saviour from sin. Remember, though, I say no 
precise and full Christian experience ; I do not say religious 
experience ; and I am not here thinking of the question of 
ultimate salvation. I simply mean that the direct and 
positive building of the new race into Christ Jesus, with 
all the consequent personal experience, did not begin and 
could not begin until all his redemptive work, all his great 
racial deeds, were finished. In any fitting place, I am 
ready and eager to make essential connection between 
Christianity and the most worthy religious life; but I am 
not willing to becloud the splendor of peculiarity which 
belongs only to a man’s experience in Jesus Christ. 

In the next doctrinal division we are thoroughly to 
study the new man in Christ, but even now we need to 
glimpse a few notable points: 

1. How God can forgive a sinner. Here you will 
miss much of the old terminology; but with a little pa- 
tience you can, I think, adjust yourselves to the racial 
‘point of view. By faith in Jesus Christ, a man does, 
through the work of the Holy Spirit, make entrance into 
the new race. The man is spiritually joined to Christ, 
becomes a living part of that peculiar people organized in 


332 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Christ, and so is a part of that racial movement toward 
the glory of God. Fundamentally speaking, the atone- 
ment is the ground of forgiveness because the atone- 
ment purchased the very possibility of such racial 
union with Christ. But actually the sinner is forgiven 
as making entrance into Christ, which is precisely the same 
thing as making entrance into the new race. Now that 
the race is provided, God can forgive any man who does 
the full ethical task which is his side of the act of entrance. 
This task is a moral faith in Jesus Christ as a personal 
Saviour, or in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who: has 
made in his death an atonement for all human sin. 
Because of the peculiarity of our time, I must insist upon 
the moral quality of the faith, by which I mean that it is 
a faith growing out of the profound moral experiences of 
conviction of sin and Christian repentance. Many a man’s 
faith takes him to Christ, gives him a large appreciation 
of Christ, leads him to do countless deeds for Christ; but 
the man’s faith has no moral quality, no driving urgency, 
and so it does not take him into Christ. Personal salva- 
tion ts realized only in Christ Ffesus. This is not rhetoric 
at all; we must make actual entrance into him, and must 
actually live in him forever. There is no other way for a 
sinner to be saved. 

But does the faith save the sinner? Even if our answer 
were Yes, it would not mean that salvation comes by 
mere human “‘works,’’ for this moral faith required, is 
itself a profound synergism, and would be impossible 
without divine contribution. But our answer to the 
question is No, positively, No. Faith has no redemp- 
tional quality; strictly speaking, faith is nothing but a 
condition, the conditional act of personal entrance. It is 
what one must do to enter Christ, but there is no re- 
demption zn the bare act, redemption follows the act. It 
is something like a man crossing the ocean. It is asa 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 333 


condition exceedingly important that he have faith to 
board the ship, but it is the ship itself which really lands 
him safely on the other shore. 

2. “Peace with God.’’ Often the question is asked, 
“How is a sinner’s peace with God philosophically pos- 
sible? How can he ever be satisfied with his sinful past?’’ 
First, I will say that there is a large amount ot false and 
unwholesome teaching at this point. A sinner saved by 
and in Jesus Christ is never satisfied with his sinful past 
in the sense that he is complacent over it. To hear some 
men talk, you would think that they had a sort of rich 
rejoicing in the fact that they once were great sinners. 
Whatever queer thing this may be, I have no interest in 
discovering—I know that it has not in it even one pulse- 
beat of real Christian experience. No Christian is satis- 
fied with his sinful past; he wishes it were not there; he 
hates it with untold might of hatred. But this hatred is 
never a moral disturbance, never reaches into conscience. 
Why not? First of all, because God has forgiven him. 
But the redemptional psychology here is very profound. 
It is not an arbitrary divine forgiveness which gives the 
sinner peace, but a forgiveness based upon the death of 
the Son of God for his sins. As I have said in another 
connection: ‘“‘A typical sinner is not a theologian; he has 
no theory of the atonement; he does not pretend to know 
what God requires, or what the moral law requires, or 
even what he himself requires for abiding peace; but he 
does believe that, whatever is required by anybody or 
anything, the requirement is satisfied, because the person 
upon that cross is God the Almighty trying to save him.” 
This, though, but leads to another question: How can this 
peace be kept under a constantly expanding moral ideal? 
The answer can be given in a word: The redeemed man 
lives in Christ, and his expanding moral ideal is nothing 
whatever but his growing conception of what Christ is 


334 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


and what Christ wants him todo. Thus, his life is full of 
effort to be more and to do more, and yet the more he 
struggles the deeper is his peace. 

The Characteristics of the New Race. The most eco- 
nomical way to conclude our long discussion of our Lord’s 
redemptive work is to gather up into definite points the 
characteristics of the new race. With these points before 
us, we can, I think, understand why the holy God is 
satisfied with such a race, or is satisfied with the death of 
his Son as rendering such a race possible. 

1. The new race is, by the death of Christ, so related to 
the Adamic race, penally, as to express in perfect con- 
tinuity God’s condemnation of sin. 

2. The center of the new race is the Son of God himself, 
with a human racial experience completed by suffering. 
And so the new race must forever express the awful ethical 
cost at which it was obtained. 

3. The new race is formed in such fashion that a man 
can enter it only on the most rigid moral terms. It is a 
holy race by the very method of its formation. 

4. This new race moves through history toward the goal 
as the one thoroughly reliable servant of the moral concern 
of God. 

5. This new race grants to every moral person the 
possibility of a holy completion of himself in his brethren 
and in his Redeemer, and of coming to a perfect service, a 
perfect rest, and a perfect joy. 

6. This new race will, at last, be the victorious realiza- 
tion of God’s original design in creation. 


“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and 
God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” 


THE FOURTH DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
REDEMPTION REALIZED IN THE NEW MAN 


Methought that the Lord showed me a heart into which he had 
put a mew song. Where the heart was I do not know; but I heard it 
singing about the middle of its song. It had been singing, “What 
profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit?” It had been 
singing the fifty-first psalm, and Jehovah had now put a mew song 
into its mouth. He had done it; and the heart was trying to sing—l 
heard it in the middle of its song. It had been reading the fifth 
chapter of Revelation and trying to sing some of its numbers; and 
now it was at these words: ‘‘or thou wast slain,’ and, O, how the 
heart was sobbing and breaking! how it was melting with a joyous 
grief and a grievous joy! O, how it faltered when it tried to sing, 
“and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood”! It was the song of one 
to whom much had been forgiven, and who, therefore, loved much, 
but it was the song of the chief of sinners, to whom most had been 
forgiven, and who, therefore, loved most. Yet it faltered and made 
wrong music; it jarred, and there was discord; and it grated on its own 
ear and pained it; and God was listening to the song—God who 
knoweth all things. But the song was presented to him through 
and by the Mediator: and if there was discord, it was removed by 
grace in atoning blood, by the sweet accents of intercession; for it 
came up as music in Jehovah’s ear—melody to the Lord. It was 
not discord in heaven. I would know, O God, whose soul that is. 
O God, let that soul be mine.— John Duncan, New College, Edinburgh, 


1843. 


XXIV. THE PERSONAL DISPENSATION OF THE 
HOLY SPIRIT 


The Question of Personality. When Professor Bey- 
schlag says that the notion of the Holy Spirit as a third 
divine person “is one of the most disastrous impor- 
tations into the Holy Scripture,’’ he is writing as a ration- 
alist and not as a Christian scholar. We should admit at 
once, however, that there is for the personality of the Holy 
Spirit no such indisputable exegetical foundation as there 
is for the deity of our Lord. The fact is, that this is one 
of those peculiar places where Christian experience must 
approach the New Testament with a certain bias. With 
our Lord as a second person in the Godhead, the theolog- 
ical problem finds no further philosophical difficulty by 
making the plurality into a trinity. Indeed, for a certain 
type of speculative mind, the trinity actually helps us to 
understand the plurality. But the personality of the 
Holy Spirit is much more than an easy addition for the 
Christian man—it is almost a necessary addition. The 
Christian consciousness is ever more and more inclined to 
believe that the Holy Ghost is a person. In any time of 
rich quickening and deepening of the Christian life you 
will notice, in song and prayer and testimony, a con- 
tinual dwelling upon the personality of the Holy Spirit. 
And, as we would naturally expect, the bias of the Chris- 
tian consciousness enters into the interpretation of God’s 
Word, as it certainly should. 

All this frankly said, still the argument for the person- 
ality of the Holy Spirit is not weak, if it is not over- 
whelming. Separated from forced and dubious elements, 
the argument may be outlined as follows: 


338 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


1. The most unartificial explanation of our Saviour’s 
own conception is that the Holy Spirit is a person. If 
you study the sixteenth chapter of Saint John’s gospel 
you will notice that the Spirit is always treated in careful 
separation from both the Father and the Son. Then, the 
term TapdkAnrog suggests much more than an impersonal 
influence. There is personal peculiarity implied. He is 
the intimate helper in danger, distress, sin, and all daily 
Christian need. To all this must be added that our Lord, 
after the resurrection, placed a separate stress upon the 
Spirit, “baptizing them into the name of the Father and 
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”’ (Saint Matt. 28. 19). 
Some of the critics, I know, demand that this passage 
shall be given up; but I do not find their reasoning con- 
vincing. My conclusion is that there is indication that 
our Lord did not regard the Holy Spirit as a mere in- 
fluence from himself, or from his Father, or from both the 
Father and the Son; but rather as a distinctly self- 
conscious Spirit. 

2. In the early church the inspired Christian con- 
sciousness, as seen in the book of Acts, treated the Holy 
Spirit in distinction and emphasis just as he had been 
treated by our Lord. There are many such expressions 
as these: “The Holy Spirit said” (Acts 13. 2); “For it 
seemed good to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 15. 28). Surely 
these passages can be explained as figurative color, or more 
profoundly as psychological dramatization ; but to take 
them as personal is less ingenious; and when connection 
is made with our Lord’s teaching the case is yet stronger. 

3. The teaching of Saint Paul can best be obtained by 
comparing Rom. 8. 26, 27 with the following: Rom. 8. 
15,16; 1 Cor. 12. 4-11; 2 Cor. 13. 14. To any student 
making this comparison in full, Saint Paul will certainly 
be regarded as holding and teaching the distinct per- 
sonality of the Holy Spirit. And so the apostle Paul in 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 339 


his epistles must be added to the book of Acts and to the 
teaching of our Lord. 

4. In the antenicene period the Holy Spirit was in 
Christian consciousness clearly separated from the Father 
and from the Son, which could not have been the case had 
he been regarded as a mere impersonal influence from 
either or both of them. I have space for only one quo- 
tation. It is from Justin Martyr’s First Apology (vi), and 
has been translated as follows: ‘‘ And we confess that we 
are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned; but 
not with respect to the most true God, the Father of 
righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who 
is free from all impurity. But both him, and the Son 

. and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore.” 

What I would claim, then, is this: If we carefully ex- 
amine the body of Christian utterance from the teaching 
of our Lord down to the most significant expression of the 
Christian consciousness before the organized church had 
any crucial doctrinal task on hand, we shall find that a 
belief in the personality of the Holy Spirit is naturally 
implied by that utterance. And I further claim that to- 
day the case is, for the Christian man, not one of exact 
exegesis and unbiased interpretation. For two reasons 
he has a practical and wholesome bias, which turns the 
above argument into personal conviction: First, the 
philosophical victory of Athanasius really counts for the 
personality of the Holy Spirit; and, second, the increasing 
deposit of Christian consciousness, for all the Christian 
centuries, more and more requires the personality of the 
Holy Spirit. It is not an instance of fundamental addi- 
tion to the Word of God; but it is an instance where 
Christian history and Christian consciousness have re- 
jected certain possible interpretations of biblical data 
and have resulted in an interpretation which is not 
satisfactory to any rationalistic scholar. But the ration- 


340 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


alistic scholar himself has just as much bias as has the 
Christian scholar. 

The Dispensation. When we speak of a “ dispensation 
of the Spirit’? we do not mean that Christ Jesus is now 
less in emphasis; nor do we mean that until now the Holy 
Spirit has been inactive; we mean simply that the pe- 
culiar work of building a new race into Christ is the work 
of the Spirit of God. This kind of work could not be 
done before because the new race was not founded. 
Thus, when it is said that the dispensation of the Holy 
Spirit was rendered possible only by the atonement in the 
death of Christ, the remark, however intended, is the 
exact truth. Details of conversion will be dealt with 
later; but, first of all, let us look at some of the general 
characteristics of this dispensation of the Holy Ghost: 

1. The Superficial Quiet of the Dispensation. A very 
marked peculiarity of this dispensation of the Spirit is 
that, as a rule, the surface of life is so undisturbed. 
Now and then the Spirit’s struggle with a soul shows itself 
in noise and external indications of battle, but usually the 
conflict is fought out entirely in the depths of the human 
soul. The man talks and laughs and plans a shrewd trade 
and takes his evening in pleasure and seems to be careless 
of all spiritual demand; but there is another chapter 
which you cannot read. Motives are being used, great 
self-decisions are now and again being made, silently 
there is deposit after deposit in moral character; and all 
this is watched and treated and lifted into full redemp- 
tional bearing by the swift and profound agency of the 
Holy Spirit. And there is a philosophy in this quiet, un- 
dramatic method, too; for were there constant noise and 
upheaval and terror there could be no genuine self- 
decision. It would be easy enough to make the whole 
race extremely religious by external coercive expedient. 
One crash of the planets would send every son of Adam 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 341 


to his knees. But this religion of coercion would not 
have even an atom of ethical meaning, and all the test of 
probation would have to be made in some other way. 
One word of exception is necessary here, however. There 
are times when it is needful to arouse pure fear to break 
up the habit of torpidity and render the operation of self- 
decision possible. But even in these torpid situations 
the fear must not be turned into overwhelming fright. 
It is to contribute to self-consciousness and not to 
smother it. 

2. The Supreme Moral Quality of the Dispensation. 
But this quiet, although it lends itself to moral test, does 
not furnish the positive ethical quality of the Spirit’s 
dispensation. This ethical quality comes from two things: 
First, from the actual stimulation which the Holy Spirit 
gives to personality. There could be no realization of 
moral demand unless the person were made strong enough 
to remain in self-consciousness. Thus, the foundation of 
all ethical movement lies in personality itself. And 
whatever makes for strong personality always makes 
for ethical possibility. In this statement is infolded the 
main principle of all wise effort in reforming men. Second, 
from the supremacy which the Holy Spirit grants to con- 
science. A full Christian experience involves the entire 
man; but the Spirit’s point of pressure is the conscience. 
No Christian thing can ever be secured until the con- 
science is thoroughly utilized and thoroughly satisfied. 
This does not conflict with anything that I have said in 
our study of morality. No man can satisfy his moral 
ideal when it is the cold, abstract, impersonal demand of 
morality ; but the moral ideal in the Christian process is, 
by the Holy Spirit, quickly related to the personal God 
and to Jesus Christ; and this Christian change profoundly 
effects the entire moral situation. But what I wish now 
to make emphatic is this: In building a Christian man the 


342 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Holy Spirit places the utmost stress upon conscience. To 
be a Christian man you must take all your conscience along 
with you. It is true that we are not come unto a “tempest 
and the sound of a trumpet,” but the mountain unto 
which we are come has in it just as much moral quality 
as there ever was in Mount Sinai. And Mount Sinai had 
in it just as much moral quality as there ever can be in 
the loftiest pure morality. 

3. The Infinite Gentleness of the Dispensation. There 
are times when the Holy Spirit seems to be furious, and 
he disturbs a wicked soul until there are no human words 
which can describe the awful torture. But when we look 
at the dispensation as a whole we find it full of gentleness. 
How patient he is with us! How he searches and searches 
for every faint beginning of better intention, to lift it 
more clearly into self-consciousness! How he waits for 
our final meaning, waits like an endless Friendship! And 
how extremely gentle his touch is! He handles a soul as 
a Great Mother handles a babe! He is so sensitive that 
even one vile thought grieves him, and yet he clings and 
clings to the worst sinner with the tenacity of holy love. 
“Thy patient love, at what a cost, at last it conquered 
me!”’ 

4. The Inevitableness of the Test. From the very fact 
that the dispensation of the Holy Spirit is so quiet and so 
ethical and so gentle, the test of the moral person as to 
intention is inevitable. No man, whatever his outward 
life, whatever his individual inheritance, whatever his 
opinions, can escape the searching questions of the Holy 
Ghost. He is the one abiding Interrogator that cannot 
be evaded and cannot be silenced. He is the augmented 
Conscience bound to come to terms of clear understanding 
with the sinner. Every external test, and every mental 
test, can be avoided. A man may honestly believe a 
half truth, and himself manipulate a falsehood into per- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 343 


sonal conviction. He may inherit prejudices which he 
cannot now even wish to overcome. He may live where 
his environment is a lifelong disadvantage. But under 
all—environment, inheritance, chosen opinions—under 
all the Holy Spirit squarely and repeatedly meets the 
man and says: ‘‘ What do you mean to do with your moral 
ideal?’’ Sooner or later the man must answer that 
question. 

5. The Finality of the Test. If what I have said of 
the Spirit’s dispensation be true, then it follows that, in 
the very nature of the case, there can be no further moral 
test. The test under the Holy Spirit is final. Not be- 
cause God is arbitrary and unwilling, but simply because 
the dispensation of the Holy Spirit exhausts all moral 
procedure. There 1s nothing more which can be done. Of 
course, if sainthood were automatic, much more could 
be done; but inasmuch as sainthood is and must be moral 
(to be sainthood at all), the notion of a second probation is 
inconceivable. 

“The sin against the Holy Ghost.” ‘Therefore I say 
unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto 
men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be 
forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the 
Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall 
speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world, nor in that which is to come”’ (Saint 
Matt. 12. 31, 32; Saint Mark 3. 28-30; Saint Luke 12. 10). 
The clue to these seemingly strange words of our Lord is 
added by Saint Mark: ‘“‘ Because they said, He hath an 
unclean spirit.’ They could make an honest mistake 
as to Jesus himself, they might not be able to look upon 
him as their expected Messiah; but to say that all the 
good Christ did was inspired by an unclean spirit re- 
vealed a heart fixed in hostility to the right—an irreme- 
diable turpitude of the personal motive-life, This sin could 


344 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


never be forgiven because it was a finality in their inten- 
tional bearing. In brief, the sin against the Holy Ghost 
is the full personal rejection of all the moral demand 
which the Holy Ghost makes through conscience. In 
the sixteenth article of the Church of England, 1552, we 
read, ‘‘ Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is when a man 
of malice, and stubbornness of mind, doth rail upon the 
truth of God’s Word manifestly perceived.’”’ Comment- 
ing upon this article, Dean Mansel says, “Thus inter- 
preted, the sin is not a single act, but a spirit of hostility 
to Christ, manifesting itself in continued acts.” The 
article and the comment have caught the spirit of the 
sin, but they are not profound enough to fit into the 
Saviour’s statement. The sin is not directly against him, 
nor directly against the Scripture, but against moral 
concern itself. It is the culmination of personal sin 
into a fixed attitude of willful unrighteousness. And 
so it is the complete exhaustion of the pressure of the 
Holy Spirit. And so it is not forgivable—it is everlasting 
moral ruin. 





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BUILDING THE NEW MAN IN CHRIST 


THE TYPICAL PROCESS IN OUTLINE 


I. THE PREPARATION FOR CONVERSION. 
A. The Human Side of the Preparation. 
1. The bearing of persons. 
2. The bearing of the Christian church. 
(1) The preacher. 
(z) The people. 
3. The bearing of the sinner himself. 
B. The Divine Side of the Preparation. 
1. The ordinary work of the Holy Spirit in conscience. 
2. The extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit in conscience 
(1) Enlightenment. 
(2) Awakening. 
(3) Conviction of sin. 
(4) Invitation. 
II. Conversion. The first point of Christian attainment—the 
loyal person. 
A. The Human Side of Conversion. 
1. Repentance. 
2. Faith. 
B. The Divine Side of Conversion. 
1. Justification. 
2. Regeneration. 
3. Adoption. 
III. Curistran Houtness. The second point of Christian attain- 
ment—the holy person. 
IV. Tue INTERMEDIATE STATE. The third point of Christian attain- 
ment—the completed personal individual. 
V. Tue RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy. The fourth point in Christian 
attainment—the completed new man in Christ. 


a 


XXV. THE PREPARATION FOR CONVERSION 


First of all, it may be well to remind you of the true 
philosophy of influence in any consistent Arminian theol- 
ogy; for many an Arminian is quite ready, after insisting 
that the influence of God cannot be coercive, to teach 
that the influence of men can actually and efficiently 
bring about the conversion of a sinner. Surely you 
readily perceive the underlying inconsistency. Let 
it be said, then, plainly and repeatedly, that no human 
influence is ever compulsory to the personal acceptance of 
Jesus Christ. But what, then, can we do by our influence? 
We can do very much. The Holy Spirit, in his dispen- 
sation, allows us to work together with him in doing two 
things: First, in clearing up the self-consciousness so there 
can be self-decision. Second, in furnishing a motive for 
ammediate self-decision. Never can we coerce a moral 
person, but we can make it necessary for him to do some- 
thing instantly. We also can do many very valuable 
things in relation to the surface of life; but with these we 
are not now concerned. For example, it is of worth to 
keep the life of a child outwardly moral by personal 
watchcare, but we are doing a superficial thing, after all, 
a thing which should not be in any manner confused with 
real conversion. 

The Bearing of Persons. By the term bearing I mean 
much more than word or deed, although these may mani- 
fest the bearing. I also mean something different from 
the quiet influence of moral character, although such 
character is of the largest moment. ‘‘What you are 
speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.” I mean 
precisely this; You hold a certain noble ideal over against 


348 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


a certain man—that he shall be a Christian of the largest 
and profoundest kind—and steadily you bear toward this 
man, without dropping the ideal, and without weakening 
the demand. To yourself you say, day after day, and 
perhaps year after year: “ Ah, you cannot deceive me. I 
will believe in you more deeply than your own estimate. 
And I will not be satisfied with any makeshift. You 
simply must be this other man which I have in mind.” 
The important thing is not how this bearing is expressed ; 
the important thing is that you really have it, that you 
cultivate it, that you never give it up either before men or 
before God. If we could only exchange our general 
“passion for souls’ for an unyielding heartache for 
definite men, our influence would be greater. The mighti- 
est thing we can ever do for a man is to insist upon 
suffering for him until he is a new man in our Lord. But 
it takes a great Christian to suffer, and to suffer wisely 
and helpfully, for other men. 

The Bearing of the Church. Here the problem is to 
create for all the work of the church, and especially for 
the church services, a Christian atmosphere. The first 
thing to do is to unload the church of all its unchristian 
features—music or ritual or anything which is planned 
as a substitute for Christian pressure. It matters not 
whether the church service is in form simple or complex, 
beautiful or rugged, provided that every item makes its 
positive spiritual offering to a Christian atmosphere. But 
yet more important is the bearing of the Christian con- 
gregation. Every Christian person in the congregation 
should insist upon a Christian atmosphere, praying for it, 
preparing for it, expecting it, and so making personal 
contribution to it. But yet more important is the bearing 
of the preacher himself. He can, in combination with the 
Holy Spirit, do more than the entire congregation. Again 
and again I have known Dr. John Hall to come into his 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 349 


pulpit and before he had spoken one word change the 
atmosphere from that of the world to that of the gospel. 
He brought Christian urgency with him; and personality 
began to rouse up, and conscience to make demand all 
over the room. The preacher’s bearing was fully as im- 
portant as his sermon. 
The Bearing of the Sinner Himself. It is of the utmost 
importance how the sinner meets the different pressures 
against his life, and how he treats the moral ideal which 
he now has. Not infrequently we hear some man say: 
“But I have never had any feeling that I should become a 
Christian—I must wait for that.” If the man’s words 
are true to the fact, the probability is that his bearing has 
been unopen toward many small spiritual appeals. The 
work of the Holy Spirit is not arbitrary—it has root- 
connections. Just as the bursting blossom has a history 
which reaches down out of sight into the ground, so a 
spiritual crisis is the outcome of many unseen things in 
personal history. This I believe: any self-conscious person 
can begin right where he 1s and bear toward God. There is 
some right thing which he can choose—some moral beck- 
oning which he can follow. This does not mean that con- 
version is immediately possible, but it does mean such a 
personal response to the Holy Spirit that more spiritual 
experiences can be giventoaman. But from what I have 
said you are likely to infer that the work of the Holy 
Spirit is always in this measure-for-measure method? 
Such is not the case. The Holy Spirit will do, sooner or 
later, every possible gracious thing for a sinner; but it 
is in his wish to make use of people, and the sinner him- 
self, as much as possible; and so again and again he waits 
for men, and precisely adapts his influence to their bearing. 
It is almost impossible to give a perfectly balanced state- 
ment of the entire case; but there are two points which 
you must tenaciously hold: First, that moral response is 


350 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


always possible to a self-conscious moral person. Second, 
that such response tends toward conversion. 

The Divine Side of the Preparation. Every movement 
in conscience is the work, I believe, of the Holy Spirit; 
but it is impossible to obtain any exact and exhaustive 
psychology of this work. We may, though, for the sake 
of redemptional emphasis, fairly divide the whole field, 
by making a distinction between the ordinary and the 
extraordinary operations of the Spirit. What we find is 
precisely this: Beyond all those common moral experiences 
which I have covered with the phrase sporadic morality, 
there are certain additional experiences which are so 
momentously significant that they should be made to stand 
out, in all practical Christian discussion, as something 
more than the usual manifestations of conscience. These 
additional experiences are in inherent correspondence with 
the higher experiences of the moral process, but they are 
deepened and augmented and corrected by GRacE. By 
grace I understand neither more nor less than that special 
intense action of the Holy Spirit which is his response to 
the definite redemptional purpose of our Lord Jesus 
Christ as the Mediator in actual session between God and 
man. What we have now under the grace of Christ is the 
filling out of the old moral indications. Even those 
initial things are in the dispensation of the Spirit, and in 
consequence (logically) of the atonement, and in teleo- 
logical connection with the plan of salvation; but it is 
only in grace that we perceive the crowning peculiarity 
of the Spirit’s dispensation. What I want you all to do 
is this: First, ground the process of conversion in the 
moral process itself. Then, lift the whole thing into 
positive Christian peculiarity. Keep the moral basis, but 
add grace. 

These extraordinary moral experiences, in as far as they 
belong to the preparation for conversion, are as follows; 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 351 


1. A Vision of Righteousness. For the first time the 
sinner sees that all separate items of wrong are but 
splinters of one vast wrong which is in antagonism to one 
vast righteousness. It is not enough to do right, here and 
there, now and then. Thus, the man obtains a moral 
ideal, and a sense of personal obligation toward his ideal. 
Morally the man is in a new state, and the theological 
term which expresses this new condition is enlightenment. 
The sinner has been enlightened by the Holy Ghost. This 
term enlightenment is very convenient; but I would make 
no battle for the word. The main thing is to keep hold 
of the fact of this new conception of righteousness as a 
whole. 

2. A Vision of the HolyGod. In the bare moral process, 
this vision of the totality of the right secures no adequate 
outcome; but in the full Christian process it is but the 
beginning of a larger vision, namely, the vision of the 
Holy God. Righteousness is now made personal, but that 
is not all. There is a further note of intense divine con- 
cern for righteousness. The Holy God is not a mere 
person who is righteous; his whole being is on fire with it, 
and the flame of his awful purity is unapproachable by 
man. With this vision of the Holy God the sinner may 
be considered as having been awakened by the Holy 
Ghost. 

3. A Vision of Sin. This is the completion of the vision 
of righteousness and God. Sin is seen to be not merely a 
violation of conscience, but an unnatural rebellion against 
the Holy God, who is intensely concerned about it. Now 
comes the real conviction of sin. ‘Against thee, thee 
only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy 
sight.” If we try to analyze the conviction of sin we shall 
find in it two features: First, the feeling that our sin is 
under God’s absolute condemnation. In John Bunyan’s 
case there was such a keen realization of impending judg- 


352 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ment that he was literally filled with terror. He says: 
“There was I struck into a very great trembling, inso- 
much that at some times I could, for days together, feel 
my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter 
under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God.” This 
is an extreme case, and it would seem almost as if the 
terror were so great as to become coercive ; but in all con- 
viction of sin there is deep distress over the wrath of God. 
Second, there is a feeling of self-blame. When convicted 
of sin, a sinner does not begin to excuse himself. He 
does not blame his parents, the law of heredity, the people 
about him; he blames just himself. He actually joins in 
the divine condemnation; and, to keep Wesley’s phrase, 
lets the law of God ‘glare upon him.” 

4. Divine Invitation. Were this conviction of sin the 
end, the sinner’s situation in the Christian process would 
be more hopeless than it is in the moral process; but the 
end is not yet. Into this distress and severity and gath- 
ering despair there comes the invitation by the Holy 
Spirit. The form and outward circumstances of this in- 
vitation may be one thing or another—a friendly Christian 
look, a letter from home, a prayer, a sermon, but what- 
ever the form, the content is the voice of God’s Spirit, 
saying, ‘‘Come, come, my son, Jesus Christ wills to save 
you.” The tenderness of this invitation is almost the 
most wonderful thing in all the action of the Holy Spirit. 
It is like a rainbow springing into the sky after a storm 
and lending a quiet hopefulness to every frightened 
creature and to every dripping thing. 

With this invitation from the Holy Spirit, the entire 
preparation for conversion is completed. 


XXVI. CONVERSION 
THE Human SIDE OF CONVERSION 


WHEN we speak of a human side of conversion we are 
speaking practically and not profoundly. In repentance, 
as well as in faith, there is a synergism, where God’s part 
is much more important than man’s part; but for practical 
reasons it is man’s part that we seek to emphasize. 

Repentance. This is another place where we have to 
do not so much with the Greek words (ueravoéw—émiorpégw) 
as with the total teaching of the New Testament, and 
with the total Christian consciousness. We will start 
with a provisional “working definition.” Repentance is a 
personal sorrow for personal sin as against the Holy God. 
In the first place, we should place the greatest emphasis 
upon the point that repentance is personal. I mean this in 
the most earnest sense. Repentance is not merely some- 
thing done by a person, it is something done by a person 
when he is self-conscious. It is not a feeling of disturbance 
in consciousness, but a feeling of moral disturbance in 
self-consciousness. It involves a clear estimate of self 
under a moral ideal. No man can repent without real 
self-decision, and there can be no self-decision without 
full self-consciousness. In the next place, repentance is 
a personal sorrow. The sorrow itself is, I believe, the 
gift of God ; but it comes to personal appropriation in self- 
decision, and expresses at last the personal bearing of the 
sinner himself. In the next place, this sorrow is over the 
sinner’s personal sin. The sorrow is not over vice. One 
may be in distress over vice and not have the spirit of 
repentance at all. Our vices may imperil our ambitious 
plans, and ruin our friendships, and make us outcasts from 


354 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


society, and injure our health, and even limit our pleasures 
—and we may be greatly troubled over it all. But such 
trouble is not sorrow over personal sin. Nor is repentance 
a man’s distressing disturbance at being found out. Many 
a criminal has been so extremely wretched, when caught 
in hig crime, as to be taken for a penitent; but his penitence 
proved to be over his misfortune and not over his vileness 
of heart. In the last place, the sorrow is over the fact 
that the sinner’s personal sin is against the Holy God. 
The final drop of bitterness in the cup of the repentant 
sinner is that he is hostile to the Holy God. He looks 
upon himself as a miserable rebel; and, without one 
clause of extenuation, his cry is only for mercy. 

It is now possible and may be helpful to enter some- 
what into the philosophy of repentance. What we 
really have in Christian repentance is the conviction of sin 
made hopeful. After the Holy Spirit’s invitation the 
sinner still keeps his vision of sin and the Holy God; but 
the vision is not alone in self-consciousness, it is there 
with the invitation. And so the vision is refashioned by 
being shot through and through with hope. This gives the 
sinner courage to make such a perfectly compliant response 
that the Holy Spirit can do more, namely, break the man’s 
hard heart. This is contrition of heart, and it is the very 
marrow of Christian repentance. But we are going a bit 
too fast. Contrition of heart is, closely speaking, the 
broken heart, the work of the Spirit, accepted, personal- 
ized, made the sinner’s very own act. And the sinner 
does all this by three personal attitudes: First, confes- 
sion. I do not mean words, although words are likely 
to be used, but an attitude of complete acknowledgment 
of guilt before God. It is the hopeful enlargement of 
the self-blame in conviction. And, second, a hopeful de- 
termination to get right at any cost. This is what Dr. 
Whedon was wont to call the ‘‘ purpose of righteousness.” 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 355 


The whole feeling is this: ‘God himself wants me to be 
right, then I can be right, then I will be right.”” And, 
third, personal hatred of his sin as ungodly. The repent- 
ant sinner begins to hate all his sin bitterly as a thing 
in antagonism with the holiness of God. 

Final Definition of Repentance. To complete our pro- 
visional definition, we would say this: Repentance is a sin- 
ner’s personal sorrow over his responsible sin, both in 
deed and in condition of heart; and involves a confession 
of the guilt of his sin, a purpose to get free from his sin, 
and an intense hatred of his sin as against the holy God. 
It is contrition of heart with three distinct notes—con- 
fession, determination, and moral hatred. 

Faith. As a matter of fact, there is a certain element 
of faith necessary toward the Holy Spirit’s invitation 
before there can be any repentance; but the full, culmi- 
nating personal bearing of saving faith is properly placed 
here after repentance and in close relation to justification. 

The Nature of Faith. The biblical writers do not aim 
to provide any exhaustive idea of the inherent nature of 
faith; but there is one suggestive passage, the familiar 
beginning of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews: ‘‘ Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a 
conviction of things not seen.’ The meaning can be 
given thus: Faith makes the unseen things for which a 
person hopes certain to his soul. And I think we can go 
further and analyze the meaning to some advantage: 
First, the object of faith must be beyond the seizure of 
the senses, and beyond the entire field of coercive reality. 
You cannot have faith in anything which can be so ex- 
actly demonstrated as to overwhelm the personal equa- 
tion. Second, this unseen object of faith must be hoped 
for. That is, the object of faith is a personal ideal which 
calls out the heart. Third, this unseen ideal faith turns 
into a personal conviction. The person is convinced that 


356 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


the ideal is not a vagary, but an object as real as the 
objects which are seen. Indeed, sometimes to a great 
saint the invisible world is much more real than is the 
visible world. 

But I want to examine more closely this term hoped for 
(tamouévwv). If I mistake not, the underlying idea is 
the same that we find again and again in the New Testa- 
ment, and especially in that verse of hot controversy in 
the fifth chapter of Galatians: “For in Christ Jesus 
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum- 
cision; but faith working through love” (60’ éydnne). 
I will not join in the controversy over this last clause; 
still I have no doubt whatever but that a sound interpre- 
tation requires the love to be regarded as a normal 
feature of faith. There can be no full faith without love, 
and no faith at all without some heart-interest. The 
person’s will cannot lay hold of the invisible ideal without 
motive, and the motive is this heart-yearning which 
idealizes the object and makes it attractive. Every man 
of faith is a spiritual idealizer—a poet, if you will. 

But even with this contribution from the heart faith is 
a personal venture. I would state it in this way: Faith 
is the personal venture by which we create that confi- 
dence in an ideal which is necessary to satisfy our entire 
being. My heart has turned the object into an ideal; 
and now I need this ideal, not asa dream, but asa reality ; 
and by the power of my personality I actually make the 
ideal real to myself. Thus, in faith a man always takes 
a risk. But he takes this risk in the name of satisfied 
manhood. 

You must not, though, suppose that the mind has no 
place in faith. In all normal faith the mind is entirely 
satisfied, only it is never allowed to make any demand 
contrary to the needs of the whole man. For illustration, 
take the idea of personal immortality. There is no 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 357 


evidence adequate to satisfy the mind in isolation. But 
if the mind takes its place in relation to all a man is in 
conscience—in heart; if the man, as a moral person, 
hopes for a world beyond the grave; if he, out of a spiritual 
life here, now, ventures on into perfect faith as to im- 
mortality, then his mind is satisfied completely. Indeed, 
there is nothing more thoroughly rational in all thinking 
than a Christian man’s faith in personal immortality. 
He is just as rational as is the rationalist. 

I am not quite pleased with what I have written con- 
cerning the mind and faith. It is true enough, but too 
vague. The fact is that in normal faith the person makes 
his venture with a satisfied mind. He does not, as some 
have taught, first believe in order that afterward he may 
satisfy his mind. He never drops his mind; he never 
lets go of reality for an instant. But the mind is not 
allowed to work alone, and the reality is lifted into an 
ideal for the whole man. Come back to immortality. 
What we have there is not a sheer fancy, but an ideal 
conception which is rooted in a group of things of which 
the man is sure now in this life. For this ideal conception 
there is no coercive evidence to reach the mind alone, but 
there is enough evidence so that when the man dares to 
make the personal venture, in the name of his ideal, and 
out of genuine spiritual need, his mind goes with him, 
satisfied all the time. 

This is just the connection in which we may best grasp 
the difference between normal faith and that abnormal 
faith which is presumption. In presumption the mind is 
never satisfied. The venture is made in the most arbi- 
trary way without any regard to reality. A man of 
presumption is bound to have his own way even if he has 
to do violence to every fact in the universe. Thus, the 
venture is likely at last to violate the moral nature. A 
man of faith, on the contrary, wants nothing whatever 


358 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


as a willful capture at the expense of reality. But he 
does believe that reality is vast enough to satisfy thor- 
oughly an entire man, heart as well as intellect. Here in 
one incident is the difference in spirit between faith and 
presumption. After trying to control the will of a 
severely wounded man a certain “ faith-healer”’ impa- 
tiently exclaimed : “‘I cannot help you as long as you keep 
believing that your head is cut open.’” The man answered: 
“But it is cut open. I will not believe a lie even to get 
well.” 

Different Kinds of Faith. There are two things which, 
either separately or in combination, differentiate one kind 
of faith from another kind. These two things are the 
relation to conscience and the nature of the ideal object. 
Perhaps our most useful plan will be to secure two main 
divisions from the standpoint of moral quality, and then 
the subdivisions from the standpoint of peculiarity in the 
ideal. 

I. Non-Moral Faith. 

1. Secular Faith. Such faith we find wherever there 
is an unrealized object which is not a matter of exact 
knowledge, and yet is in some way an ideal toward which 
a man goes out in full but unarbitrary aspiration. There 
may be such aspiration toward such an ideal in national 
life, or in science, or in invention, or in discovery, or even 
in the ordinary world of business. In truth, the very 
great things in secular affairs are usually done by faith; 
sometimes admittedly by presumption, but more often 
by such a combination of knowledge and hope and venture 
as amounts to real faith. 

2. Bare Religious Faith. This has already been noticed 
in our Introduction, and no further word is required in 
this connection. 

II. Moral Faith. 
3. The Lowest Phase of Moral Faith. A secular faith 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 359 


may (as in the finest patriotism, or in the most noble 
philanthropy) involve the moral nature, and so become a 
moral faith, expressing not only mind and heart-interest 
and personal venture, but also a positive sense of duty. 

4. The Lowest Phase of Moral Religious Faith. In 
the religion of the moral person it is possible to have a 
moral faith which is not definitely theistic, and so we 
protect this fact in our classification. 

5. Theistic Faith. Here the ideal is either the personal 
God or the moral law considered as the manifest will of 
the personal God. 

6. Messianic Faith. The Old Testament faith, at its 
highest, is much more than a theistic faith; for the ideal 
is saturated with a peculiar redemptional expectancy. 
The Old Testament prophet, deal with him as critically 
as the Christian consciousness will permit, is looking on— 
on to a coming Redeemer from sin; and this Messianic 
element gives to the object of faith a moral intensity 
which is not possible to any form of naked theism. 

7. Christian Faith. To the Christian man the Re- 
deemer is no longer an expectation—He is come! And 
this one fact lifts every phase of Christian faith inte a 
completeness which is merely suggested by other kinds of 
faith. 

The Faith that Saves a Sinner. In New Testament 
usage, the word tiorz¢ has a number of very different 
meanings. Sometimes it means fidelity; again it means 
a trust in a divine promise; again it means a man’s entire 
attitude of confidence toward God; and again it means 
the essential body of Christian teaching. But beyond all 
this there is, especially in Saint Paul’s epistles, a concep- 
tion of a definite faith which saves a sinner; and this 
saving fatth is the root of every phase of Christian faith. 
This saving faith is ‘‘faith in Jesus Christ”’ (see the third 
chapter of Romans). But the Christian meaning does 


360 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


not all appear in the phrase. It is not Jesus asa person, 
nor Jesus as a teacher, nor Jesus as a Master; but Jesus as 
the Son of God become our actual Saviour from sin. 
Bishop Lightfoot, in his commentary on Galatians, says 
that to understand the force, and to appreciate the leading 
conception, of Saint Paul’s teaching as to faith, ‘“‘it would 
be necessary to take into account the atoning death and 
resurrection of Christ as the central object on which that 
faith is fixed.” In any normal situation the full object 
of saving faith is this: Jesus Christ as God in self-sacrifice 
become man; and having by his death made full atone- 
ment for sin. This double emphasis makes the es- 
sential ideal, but often it has been enlarged to cover the 
resurrection and even the present mediation of our Lord. 
I would not say, however, that in every individual case 
to-day the sinner’s faith in Christ involves the entirety of 
this double emphasis, and that without it there is no 
real conversion. I dare not say somuch. But I do say 
that a sinner who has been convicted of sin, and who has 
responded in thorough repentance, needs, in his object of 
faith, both the deity and the death of our Lord; and when 
either is lacking his Christian experience is likely to be 


extremely superficial. 
DEFINITIONS 
Concise. 


Saving faith is the perfect trust of a repentant sinner in Jesus 

Christ as his divine Saviour from sin. 
Enlarged. 

Saving faith is the perfect trust of a repentant sinner in Jesus 
Christ as his divine Saviour from sin; and involves the entire 
man—mind and sensibility and will. 

Comprehensive. 

Saving faith is a personal bearing of the entire man; pre- 
supposing that sense of moral need which is completed by repent- 
ance: and involving, normally, a conviction that Christ is God, 
and that his death was an atonement for sin; and further involv- 
ing a feeling of both duty and love toward Christ; this whole 
bearing being gathered up in a positive venture out upon Christ 
as a personal Saviour. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 361 


THE Divine SIDE OF CONVERSION 

Those exact distinctions which are made in systematic 
theology between justification, regeneration, and adop- 
tion are not supported by modern biblical investigation. 
In presenting the Christian life, not only has every New 
Testament writer a way of his own, but, what is still more 
confusing, no writer aims to secure any philosophical con- 
sistency in his different statements. Saint Paul comes 
the nearest to fundamental consistency; but when we 
apply the modern method to his epistles, the most of his 
assertions are seen to be practical and literary rather 
than philosophical. Justification and adoption, for ex- 
ample, are not separate and exclusive things in Saint 
Paul’s mind, as if God first justified a sinner before the 
law and then adopted him into his family. The apostle 
is all the time writing about the same thing, only with 
two literary forms in mind, and so from two different 
practical points of emphasis. 

Still there is great advantage, for some minds at least, 
in so lifting out of all vagueness the different practical 
points of emphasis as to separate them into distinct 
momenta of the divine side of conversion. Such separa- 
tion gives us a clearer view of the magnificent total of 
Christian experience, and need not mislead anyone, if he 
only keep in mind that we are dealing not with several 
basal things, but with one basal thing in its several prac- 
tical relations. 

Fustification. The Greek word here is denadw. 
Whether we hold, with some commentators, that the 
word means to make righteous, or hold, with other com- 
mentators, that the word means to pronounce righteous, 
is really of no great concern. In either case, the meaning 
is merely forensic. The sinner’s new condition is a legal 
condition. The use of this term does not indicate in the 


362 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


least the present subjective state of the sinner, but only 
that the law has no further claim against him. 

In a most characteristic passage Cardinal Newman 
admits that d:caovv means only to declare righteous, 
but adds that the divine declaration is creative. “It is 
not like some idle sound, or a vague rumor coming at 
random and tending no whither ; but it is ‘the word which 
goeth forth out of his mouth’; it has a sacramental power, 
being the instrument as well as the sign of his will. It 
never can ‘return unto him void, but it accomplishes that 
which he pleases, and prospers in the thing whereto he 
sends it.’ Imputed righteousness is the coming in of 
actual righteousness. They whom God’s sovereign voice 
pronounces just, forthwith become in their measure 
just.”” How like Newman all this sounds! So original, 
so uplifting, and yet so empty of reality and so distant 
from Saint Paul! Through Newman’s discussion one 
can seldom catch even the faintest and most flashing 
glimpse of the apostle. 

What, then, does Saint Paul mean by the justification 
of a sinner? He does not mean that God actually wills 
the condition of subjective righteousness into the soul of a 
sinner. Nor do I think that Saint Paul means that God 
forgives a sinner, or pardons a sinner. Those words, 
forgiveness and pardon, answer well enough in ordinary 
speech; but neither one of them is quite large enough to 
express all the apostle means by justification. Perhaps 
I can best bring out the Pauline view by a paraphrase: 
“T am thinking of those who are im Christ Jesus, in him 
by faith and the work of the Holy Spirit. How are they 
now related to God? They are to him as righteous men. 
The past is blotted out, and they are in a class now fully 
under his favor, to be treated as men saved by the death 
of Christ. In one word, they are justified, for no longer 
are they under the condemnation of the law.” 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 363 


DEFINITIONS 
Dr. Latimer’s Definition. 

“We therefore define justification to be that gracious act of 
God, as Moral Governor, whereby, on the ground of the atone- 
ment, and on condition of faith in Christ, he pardons the penitent, 
and treats him as though he had not sinned, and receives him 
into positive favor.”’ 

Popular Definition. 

Justification is God’s acceptance of a sinner who joins himself 

by moral faith to Jesus Christ. 
Descriptive Definition. 

When a repentant sinner has faith in Jesus Christ as his divine 
Saviour, God forgives the man’s sin, and receives the man him- 
self into full favor, because Christ died for him. Thus, the 
sinner is justified. 

Final Definition. 

Justification is that change in personal bearing, whereby God, 
because of the death of Christ, and on condition of a repentant 
sinner’s faith in Christ as his divine Saviour, receives him into 
full favor. 


Regeneration. I cannot agree with Professor Sanday 
when he says that “the Christian life is made to have its 
beginning in a fiction.” Such an idea of fiction in justi- 
fication comes from failing to remember that justification 
is but a phase, one relative aspect, of a fundamental ex- 
perience. That fundamental experience is union with 
Christ. And, while one phase of this union is a new rela- 
tion to God’s favor, another phase is a new spiritual life 
in the sinner himself, a new life which is obtained by a. 
new relation to the Holy Ghost. To use John Wesley’s 
words, “There is a real as well as a relative change.” ‘No 
man is justified without being regenerated.” 

The Scripture Data. In coming to the New Testament 
we are to seek only data, and not any philosophy of 
regeneration ; and such data we find in great abundance. 
First, we have Saint Peter’s phrase, “having been begot- 
ten again” (1 Pet. 1. 23). Then, we have Saint John’s 
words: “ Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is 
begotten of God” (1 John 5. 1; also see r John 2. 29; 3. 9; 


364 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


4. 7; and compare with Saint John’s gospel 1. 12, 13). 
Then, although Saint Paul is peculiarly the teacher of 
justification, still he now and again seems to have in mind 
the change which takes place in the sinner himself. In 
Galatians (4. 19) he writes, “until Christ be formed in 
you.” In 2 Corinthians (5. 17) he writes, “ Wherefore if 
any man is in Christ, he is a new creature’’ (xatvn «riotc) ; 
and in Ephesians (4. 23, 24), “And that ye be renewed 
in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that 
after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness 
of truth.” 

Many students have difficulty in understanding our 
Lord’s words to Nicodemus: ‘Except one be born of 
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God.” Our Saviour’s meaning becomes quickly evident 
when we note that the word water makes connection with 
the peculiar mission of John the Baptist, which Christ 
was eager to recognize. John’s baptism was one of water 
with the most tremendous emphasis upon repentance. 
Our Lord said to Nicodemus in substance this: “To enter 
the kingdom of God you must have a new birth, a birth 
which begins with repentance on your part, and is ac- 
complished by the power of the Holy Spirit. You must 
start with John’s teaching, but go away beyond that, and 
rely upon the Spirit of God, who can make you all over 
again.”’ 

A Psychology of Regeneration. Can we, though, get 
this fact of regeneration into any terms of psychological 
clarity? I think so. Whena repentant sinner, through 
moral faith, comes into union with Jesus Christ, Christ 
as his Saviour, in the very nature of the case, has some 
place in the affection and in the conscience of the sinner. 
There is some heart-interest in Christ and some sense of 
obligation toward Christ. Were this not so, there could 
be no moral faith in Christ. Now think your way back 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 365 


to our discussion of motives, and you will see that this 
introduction of Christ into the motive-life is an event of 
large psychological possibility. My conception of regen- 
eration is simply this: The Holy Spirit takes this new 
motive and vitalizes it, and organizes the sinner’s entire 
motivity, his entire range of interest, about it to this 
extent, namely, that in every full mood of self-conscious- 
ness the regenerate man cares more for his Lord than for 
all other things. Not yet can we say that the man is 
altogether organized, but the whole new plan of manhood 
is established, and the center of this plan is loyalty to 
Fesus Christ. 

Nor is this all of regeneration. There is something 
much more glorious. This new plan of organization in 
motivity is kept vital by the actual indwelling of the Holy 
Ghost. Recall Saint Paul’s words (Rom. 8. 9): “if so be 
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”’ (oixet év iyiv). 
The apostle does not mean here any ordinary residence 
of the Holy Spirit in a man; but a residence of peculiar 
Christian efficiency. When a sinner is really united to 
Jesus Christ by moral faith, the Spirit of God makes his 
own home in that man, and it is the Holy Spirit who com- 
pletes the union with Christ, and vitalizes the new mo- 
tive, and grounds the new plan of spiritual manhood, and 
remains in the man, sending pulses of power through his 
whole being. Regeneration is not merely a new motive 
of loyalty to Christ, and not merely this motive vitalized 
and placed by the Holy Spirit; regeneration is loyalty to 
Jesus Christ vitalized as a motive, made supreme as a 
motive, and kept vital and kept supreme by the actual 
indwelling of the Spirit of God. 


Definition. 
Regeneration is the primary reorganization of a person’s entire 
motive-life by the vital action and abiding presence of the Holy 
Spirit so that the ultimate motive is loyalty to Jesus Christ. 


366 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Adoption. In the fourth chapter of Galatians (verse 5) 
Saint Paul says, “that he might redeem them that were 
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of 
sons” (iva tiv viobeciay dnoddBapev). This term viobecia 
is peculiarly Pauline, and is used in at least three 
of his epistles. By this term the apostle never means 
sonship, but always and exactly sonship by adoption. 
Unrelated to the work of Christ, men are sons of God 
potentially, are sons by plan; but actually they are slaves 
and can realize sonship only by divine adoption. 

More deeply, though, what is meant by adoption? 
Saint Paul did not get the idea from the Old Testament; 
but, as Dr. Ball has convincingly shown, from the Roman 
law, under which a stranger by blood could become a 
member of a family as really as though he had been born 
into it. ‘He became identified with the family in a 
higher sense than some who had the family blood in their 
veins, than emancipated sons, or descendants through 
females. He assumed the family name, partook in its 
mystical sacrificial rites, and became, not on sufferance, 
or at will, but to all intents and purposes, a member of the 
house of his adoption.’’ The question now arises, Have 
we in this adoption nothing but Saint Paul’s doctrine of 
justification, given in a second forensic setting? I think 
not. As stated before, the underlying Christian fact of 
union with Christ is the same in all these relative phases 
of experience; but adoption is a phase, and is just as 
distinct from justification as justification is distinct from 
regeneration. In the doctrine of justification the prac- 
tical meaning is this: ‘‘ When a sinner is in Christ Jesus 
the attitude of the Holy God toward him is a new attitude 
of positive favor.” In the doctrine of regeneration the 
practical meaning is this: “When a sinner is in Christ 


———e 


Jesus he has a new motive of loyalty to Christ, about © 


which his personal life is reorganized by the indwelling 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH aé7 


Holy Spirit.” In the doctrine of adoption the practical 
meaning is this: “ When a sinner is in Christ Jesus he has 
a new family, God is actually his Father, Christ is his 
Elder Brother, all the redeemed are his own brethren; 
and there is provided for him a great inheritance and an 
everlasting home.” 


Definition. 

Adoption is a legal term which Saint Paul borrowed from the 
Roman law to express the social phase of conversion, namely, 
that a saved sinner is not only justified and regenerated, but 
actually incorporated into the family of God to enjoy its fellow- 
ship and to share its destiny. 


The Witness of the Holy Spirit to Our Adoption as Sons. 
In the Epistle to the Romans (8. 15, 16) we find another 
passage in relation to adoption: ‘‘For ye received not 
the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the 
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The 
Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
children of God” (compare with Gal. 4. 6, 7). Iam fully 
convinced that this passage has been misunderstood by a 
number of our greatest interpreters of Christian experi- 
ence; but, in such matters, their judgments, and even 
their intuitions, are usually so reliable that it is only with 
very great hesitation that I undertake to give my own 
view of what Saint Paul means by the witness of the Spirit 
that we are the children of God. Perhaps, though, the 
most economical way to reach a clear result will be to 
outline my entire view of the Christian assurance of con- 
version : 

1. We may be assured by inference. When Saint John 
says that “we know that we have passed out of death 
into life, because we love the brethren,”’ he indicates an 
assurance which is by pure inference. Almost endless 
are the combinations of this sort of assurance, but the in- 
ner movement is ever the same: “I was that kind of a man; 


368 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


I am this kind of a man—therefore.’’ Naturally this as- 
surance by inference increases as the Christian life ma- 
tures by taking on the “fruits of the Spirit.” 

2. We may be assured by conscience. When we have 
what Saint Paul calls ‘‘ peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ”’ it is the end of a struggle in conscience, and 
for the first time the sinner can face his moral ideal without 
any sense of condemnation. Thus, there is an intuitive 
element of assurance in the fundamental operation of 
conscience itself in moral settlement. But with my con- 
ception of conscience, even this peace with God is not a 
mechanical thing, but truly the work of the Holy Spirit. 

3. The assurance by conscience may be augmented and 
transformed. As we read the lives of typical Christians, 
we soon perceive that sometimes, at conversion or later, 
this peace in conscience becomes so intense and penetrat- 
ing that it really amounts to a new intuition that God has | 
forgiven the sinner and taken him into his rich favor. 
This is what many mean by “the immediate witness of 
the Holy Spirit.” And while the language about the 
fact is usually popular and inexact, nearly always the 
language is essentially true to the fact. Indeed, it is 
impossible to exaggerate the wonder and potency of this 
experience. 

4. We may have yet another assurance. But no one of 
these three is what Saint Paul means when he says: “ The 
Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
children of God.” The standpoint from which Saint 
Paul is now speaking is neither that of justification, nor 
that of regeneration, but definitely that of adoption. 
The assurance, therefore, is not that the saved sinner has 
the forgiveness and favor of God, but that he is in the 
family of God. If it be said that to be sure of God’s 
favor is also to be sure that he is our Father, I answer that 
such is not inevitably the case. You must remember that 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 369 


we are dealing with spontaneous personal seizure. A 
man may come to full self-consciousness, may lay hold of 
every item in the vision, may have the profoundest peace 
under his moral ideal, and yet may have no filial sense 
whatever. It is one thing to think ‘God is my Father!”’ 
and quite another thing to feel it within. Many a man 
has for years preached about the Fatherhood of God, and 
never once intuited it in personal experience, never once 
burst like the breaking day into the quick and inevitable 
intuition, ‘Abba, Father!’ 

The exegetes make much of Saint Paul’s use of the 
verb ovypaprvpéw, but to me the synergistic nature of the 
witness is more convincingly evident from a large study 
of all the operations of grace, in connection with a close 
study of human personality itself. What takes place is 
essentially this: The moment the Holy Spirit begins the 
reorganization of a man he begins to help the person to 
recover the filial sense which man had lost in depravity. 
The person, now loyal to Christ, struggles toward the 
realization, but cannot fully achieve it, no, not even in his 
loftiest mood. Then, there comes a crisis (not necessa- 
rily an external crisis) when with a deeper sense of need, 
or with a more thorough consecration, or with a greater 
purpose to serve men, the man opens himself entirely to 
the wish of the Holy Spirit. Into this new opportunity 
the Spirit rushes eagerly and completes the broken in- 
tuition ; and now the self-conscious person has the glorious 
filial sense, and his home-life in the family of God is as 
real to him as his peace in conscience. 

I myself deem this intuitive grasping of the fact of adop 
tion as the crowning experience in this world. I deem it 
so because it lifts the saved sinner out of that extreme 
emphasis upon his single self, upon his salvation, upon his 
life with God, and maxes him actually live in the fellow- 
ship of the whole family of God. You cannot misunder- 


370 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


stand me if I say that sainthood has often shown an in- 
clination to isolate its life of rapture, and to forget that 
we are one organic brotherhood in Christ Jesus, with one 
Father, one social relation, and one final home. Surely 
there should be the most tremendous emphasis upon the 
one moral person, upon what he is, upon what he ought 
to do, and upon what he may become ; but that exaltation 
of the person is not all of the Christian life, is not the 
Christian finality. The finality is where the Christian 
man finds himself all over again in the large experience 
of the mighty family of God. And one important step 
toward this Christian finality is that experience where 
the whole vision of self-consciousness is luminous with 
the spontaneous assurance that we have been adopted 
as sons, and now belong in title and privilege and service 
to the household of God the Father Almighty. 


























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I have made a little exposition of Methodism, but I see it will be 
too long to present in full. I sum it all up in one or two sentences. 
As to its theology, it takes the old theology of the Christian church, 
but it takes one element which no other Christian church has dared 
to put forward as a prominent feature of theology. In ours it is the 
very point from which we view all theology. Now listen; I want 
that to be understood. Knowing exactly what I say, and taking the 
full responsibility of it, I repeat, we are the only church in history, 
from the apostles’ time until now, that has put forward as its very 
elemental thought—the great central pervading idea of the whole 
Book of God from the beginning to the end—the holiness of the human 
soul, heart, mind, and will. Go through all the confessions of all the 
churches, and you will find this in no other. You will find even some 
of them that blame us in their books and writings. It may be called 
fanaticism, but, dear friends, that is our mission. If we keep to 
that, the next century is ours; if we keep to that, the triumphs of the 
next century shall throw those that are past far into the shade. Our 
work is a moral work—that is to say, the work of making men holy. 
Our preaching is for that, our church agencies are for that, our schools, 
colleges, universities, and theological seminaries are for that. There 
is our mission—there is our glory—there is our power, and there 
shall be the ground of our triumph. God keep us true— John McClin- 
tock, the first president of the Drew Theological Seminary; from an address 
delivered at the Methodist Centenary Celebration in New York, Janu- 
ary 25, 1866; reported in the Methodist, issue of February 3, 1866. 


XXVII. PERSONAL HOLINESS 


PsYCHOLOGICALLY this doctrine belongs to the general 
subject of conversion, for holiness is really the completion 
of regeneration ; but there are practical reasons for a sep- 
arate discussion and formal emphasis. 

Our wisest course is to avoid the many controversies, 
and go back to John Wesley himself. We could not 
fairly deal with the controversies without making use of 
certain books which, while very penetrating and sugges- 
tive, manifest a spirit so narrow and ungenerous as to 
create an atmosphere unworthy of the theme. Of all 
the places in Christian discussion, this is the one place 
where it is more wholesome to have a weak argument than 
to have a vitiating atmosphere. And, further, there are 
three positive reasons why it is of the larger importance 
to go back to Wesley: First, Wesley was the central 
point of Christian consciousness in a special doctrinal 
epoch. Historically, Wesley had almost the same 
epochal relation to the doctrinal emphasis upon holiness 
that Luther had to the doctrinal emphasis upon justifi- 
cation by faith, or that Athanasius had to the doctrinal 
emphasis upon the Deity of our Lord. Second, because 
Wesley was the leader in such an epochal movement, he 
had at hand quantity in data. The flaw in some of the 
modern discussions of Christian perfection is not so much 
in the reasoning as in the want of sufficient data to 
reason upon. The author is like a botanist giving out a 
dictum about a rare plant which he has cultivated in a 
hothouse. Every word he says is the truth, but it is 
not the typical truth. There is sometimes a genuine 
Christian experience which is so individualistic as to be 


374 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


almost worthless for theology. Third, quantity of data, 
however, is of small worth unless there be surety in 
Christian discrimination. There are several recent scien- 
tific studies of Christian experience which would be almost 
priceless in value had the authors only known the difference 
between reality and imitation. It is possible to obtain 
a thousand answers to a list of set questions and have 
only a hundred of them with any real Christian meaning. 
It is just at this point that John Wesley was a master in 
Israel. He did almost no fundamental thinking, not 
merely because he was ceaselessly occupied with practical 
affairs, but mainly because his mind, like that of Glad- 
stone, was receptive and not creative. But Wesley had 
such extraordinary spiritual insight, and such sanity in 
judgment, that often his most casual statement, espe- 
cially in his Journal, is more illuminating than many a 
profound monograph in theology. 


THE WESLEYAN DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION 


Wesley's Own Experience. John Wesley was always 
loath to reveal the deepest things of his Christian life. 
He freely gives you his opinions and delights to talk 
about his work; but it is only now and then that 
you can catch any glimpse of ‘‘the inner chamber of 
introspection.” And yet, by careful search, we can 
discover a few very significant points of self-revela- 
tion. 

1. It is significant that Wesley was greatly impressed 
by Jeremy Taylor’s discussion of purity of intention. 
Forty years afterward, in his Journal, May 14, 1765, 
Wesley writes: “I was struck particularly with the 
chapter upon intention, and felt a fixed intention ‘to give 
myself up to God.’”” For a young man twenty-two years 
of age, and having Wesley’s ecclesiastical surroundings, 
to lift this one idea of intention into potent emphasis is 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 375 


not only remarkable, but also momentous. It is, indeed, 
Wesley’s prophetic start. 

2. About five years later we find another significant 
point. He has now become “‘a man of one Book,” and 
he perceives that love is the key to the full Christian life. 
In his Journal, same date as already quoted, he says: “I 
then saw, in a stronger light than ever before, that only 
one thing is needful, even faith that worketh by the love 
of God and man, all inward and outward holiness; and 
I groaned to love God with all my heart, and to serve 
him with all my strength.’ Let us now note precisely 
what Wesley has: He has a clear idea that the person’s 
central purpose is an important feature of the Christian 
life ; but he perceives that it is not enough to hold passively 
this purpose, it must be positively expressed in a faith 
- which works by love. Further, he has a craving both 
for a supreme love toward God and for a life giving out 
that love in the largest service. 

3. But did Wesley actually reach the experience for 
which he yearned? In his Journal, December 23-25, 1744, 
we read this: “I was unusually lifeless and heavy, till the 
love feast in the evening; when, just as I was constraining 
myself to speak, I was stopped, whether I would or no: 
for the blood gushed out of both my nostrils, so that I 
could not add another word: but in a few minutes it 
stayed, and all our hearts and mouths were opened to 
praise God. Yet the next day I was again as a dead man; 
but in the evening, while I was reading prayers at Snows- 
fields, I found such light and strength as I never remem- 
ber to have had before. I saw every thought as well as 
every action or word, just as it was rising in my heart; 
and whether it was right before God, or tainted with 
pride or selfishness. I never knew before (I mean not as 
at this time) what it was ‘to be still before God.’ Tues- 
day, 25. I waked, by the grace of God, in the same spirit ; 


a 


376 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


and about eight, being with two or three that believed in 
Jesus, I felt such an awe and tender sense of the presence 
of God as greatly confirmed me therein, so that God was 
before me’all the day long. I sought and found him in 
every place, and could truly say, when I lay down at night, 
‘Now I have lived a day.’” To anyone familiar with 
John Wesley’s careful, realistic manner of speech, it is 
evident that we have here the same sort of testimony to 
the experience of holiness that we have in his Journal, 
May 24, 1738, to the experience of conversion. If the one 
is not quite so near a full definition as the other, it surely 
is just as expressive of the fact. I find it almost impos- 
sible to read Wesley’s words in the light of all his later 
utterance about the doctrine of Christian perfection, and 
not consider this date, December 24, 1744, as the probable 
time when he began to love God supremely. 

4. Ina letter (CCCLIII) from London, June 19, 1771, 
there is another important reference to Wesley’s own 
experience: ‘‘Many years since I saw that ‘without holi- 
ness no man shall see the Lord.’ I began following after 
it, and inciting all with whom I had any intercourse to do 
the same. Ten years after, God gave me a clearer view 
than I had before of the way to attain this, namely, by 
faith in the Son of God. And immediately I declared to 
all, ‘We are saved from sin, we are made holy, by faith.’ 
This I testified in private, in public, in print; and God 
confirmed it by a thousand witnesses. I have con- 
tinued to declare this for above thirty years; and God 
hath continued to confirm the word of his grace.” By 
using this passage as a supplement to all we had before, 
I think it would be possible to make out quite a probable 
history of Wesley’s movement in grace from the point 
where he was impressed so deeply by Jeremy Taylor on 
to his own actual experience of holiness; but such a his- 
tory is not what I am really after. I want these refer- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 377 


ences by John Wesley to his own experience simply to 
prepare the way for our better understanding of his teach- 
ing, and for our better appreciation of the quiet intensity 
and certainty manifest in his demand that Christian peo- 
ple should be holy. 

Wesley's Teaching Analyzed. 

1. The Name. It is to be noted, first of all, that 
Wesley called the experience of holiness “Christian per- 
fection, or scriptural perfection.”’ (See especially Letter 
CCCLI.) 

2. As to Conduct. Such perfection does not mean 
perfection in conduct. “But these souls dwell in a shat- 
tered, corruptible body, and are so pressed down thereby 
that they cannot exert their love as they would, by 
always thinking, speaking, and acting precisely right. 
For want of better bodily organs, they sometimes in- 
evitably think, speak, or act wrong” (Letter CLXXXVI; 
also see Letter CCX XIX). 

3. As to Individual Character. The imperfection is 
deeper than conduct and belongs even to the individual 
character itself. ‘‘These very persons feel more than 
ever their own ignorance, littleness of grace, coming short 
of the full mind that was in Christ, and walking less 
accurately than they might have done after their Divine 
Pattern; and are more convinced of the insufficiency of 
all they are, or do, to bear the eye of God without a Medi- 
ator; are more penetrated with the sense of the want of 
him than ever they were before’’ (Letter CCCLI). 

4. As to Temptation. Nor does Christian perfection 
secure freedom from actual temptation. In a letter to 
the Bishop of London (vol. viii, p. 484) Wesley says: 
“There is no such perfection in this life as implies an 
entire deliverance from manifold temptations.” And in 
commenting on the Journal of Elizabeth Harper (vol. 
xiv, p. 278) Wesley says: ‘“‘She was exceedingly 


378 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


tempted, after she believed God had cleansed her from 
inbred sin.’’ (Also see Plain Account, sec. 25, question 
14.) 

5. As to Sinless Perfection. Wesley himself avoided the 
phrase sinless perfection, because, in a generic sense, sin is 
any want of individual conformity to the law of God. But 
Wesley’s own final definition of sin was strictly personal. 
In a letter (CCCCII) he writes: ‘‘ Nothing is sin, strictly 
speaking, but a voluntary transgression of a known law 
of God.’’ But I have found no way of harmonizing all 
of Wesley’s statements at this point; and I am inclined 
to think that he never entirely cleared up his own thinking 
concerning the nature and scope of sin. At first I be- 
lieved that a path out of his seeming inconsistency might 
be found by means of an exact chronology, but a severer 
examination of all his writings forced me to give up even 
that hope. 

6. As to Love. While again and again Wesley makes 
_ much of personal intention, this intention of the person 
is not enough; the intention must be gathered up into a 
positive fullness of love. To be a perfect Christian is 
nothing other than being perfect in love toward God and 
man. In his Journal, August 27, 1768, Wesley writes: 
“T mean, ‘loving God with all our heart, and our neighbor 
as ourselves.’ I pin all its opposers to this definition of 
it. Noevasion! No shifting of the question!” And the 
same statement, in slightly varying words, can be found 
all through Wesley’s writings. 

7. Asto Time. In Brief Thoughts (January 27, 1767) 
Wesley says: ‘‘As to time, I believe this instant is gen- 
erally the instant of death, the moment before the soul 
leaves the body. But I believe it may be ten, twenty, 
or forty years before. I believe it is usually many years 
after justification; but that it may be within five years 
or five months after it, I know no conclusive argument to 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 379 


the contrary.’’ In another place (not taken from the 
London edition) Wesley says that “some of the most 
unquestionable witnesses of sanctifying grace were sanc- 
tified within a few days after they were justified.” And 
in his Journal, September 8, 1765, there is an account of 
what Wesley deems a most remarkable case—‘‘a person 
convinced of sin, converted to God, and renewed in love, 
within twelve hours.’’ And Wesley adds: “Yet it is by 
no means incredible, seeing one day is with God as a 
thousand years.’’ I have found no testimony in Wesley’s 
writings that justification and entire sanctification ever 
take place at the same time; but it is plain enough that 
in his last years he was unwilling to set any limit. As 
his experience with men widened, and his pastoral intui- 
tions deepened, he became less conservative on all ques- 
tions of divine grace—was more open to new and aston- 
ishing results in the work of the Holy Spirit. 

8. As to Growth. On the surface there seems to be 
a contradiction in Wesley’s teaching at this point. At 
times, apparently, he teaches that a regenerated man can 
actually grow into Christian perfection. In Sermon 
CVII, on God’s Vineyard, we read: “And as, in natural 
birth, a man is born at once, and then grows larger and 
stronger by degrees; so, in spiritual birth, a man is born at 
once and then gradually increases in spiritual stature and 
strength. The new birth, therefore, is the first point of 
sanctification, which may increase more and more unto 
the perfect day.” There are a number of passages to 
the same effect. To harmonize this view of growth with 
Wesley’s other statements, some have said that he be- 
lieved Christian perfection is obtained either by growth 
or by instant and crucial faith; but the truth, I think, is 
that Wesley regarded the decisive stroke in attainment as 
always instantaneous, growth being but a preparation 
for the stroke, or an after work in utilization and enlarge- 


380 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ment. In the Minutes of Several Conversations, Wesley 
says: “The substance, then, is settled, but, as to the 
circumstance, is the change gradual or instantaneous? 
It is both the one and the other. From the moment we 
are justified, there may be a gradual sanctification, a 
growing in grace, a daily advance in the knowledge and 
love of God. And if sin cease before death there must, 
in the nature of the thing, be an instantaneous change; 
there must be a last moment wherein it does exist, and a 
first moment wherein it does not” (viii, 328). Again to 
the same purpose in the Plain Account (sec. 19): “Is this 
death to sin, and renewal in love, gradual or instanta- 
neous?” His answer is in these very striking words: “A 
man may be dying for some time; yet he does not, properly 
speaking, die till the instant the soul is separated from 
the body; and in that instant he lives the life of eternity. 
In like manner, he may be dying to sin for some time; yet 
he is not dead to sin till sin is separated from his soul; and 
in that instant he lives the full life of love. And as the 
change undergone, when the body dies, is of a different 
kind, and infinitely greater than any we had known before, 
yea, such as till then it is impossible to conceive; so the 
change wrought when the soul dies to sin is of a different 
kind, and infinitely greater than any before, and than any 
can conceive till he experiences it. Yet he still grows in 
grace, in the knowledge of Christ, in the love and image 
of God; and will do so, not only till death, but to all 
eternity.” Again in Brief Thoughts, Wesley touches 
upon the method of attainment: ““T believe this perfection 
is always wrought in the soul by a simple act of faith; 
consequently, in an instant. But I believe a gradual 
work, both preceding and following that instant”’ (xi, 446). 

g. As to Assurance. In the Plain Account, sec. 25, 
question 16: ‘“‘ How do you know that you are sanctified, 
saved from your inbred corruption?” Answer; “I can 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 381 


know it no otherwise than I know that I am justified. 
.. . We know it by the witness and by the fruit of the 
Spirit. And, first, by the witness. As, when we were 
justified, the Spirit bore witness with our spirit that our 
sins were forgiven; so, when we were sanctified, he bore 
witness that they were taken away. Indeed, the witness 
of sanctification is not always clear at first (as neither is 
that of justification); neither is it afterward always the 
same, but, like that of justification, sometimes stronger, 
and sometimes fainter. Yea, and sometimes it is with- 
drawn. Yet, in general, the latter testimony of the Spirit 
is both as clear and as steady as the former.’’ 

to. As to Losing the Experience. At first Wesley 
believed that the experience of Christian perfection 
could not be lost, but finally he was convinced that it 
could be. In a letter to his brother (LXVII, London, 
February 12, 1767) Wesley writes: “‘Can one who has 
attained it fall? Formerly I thought not; but you (with 
Thomas Walsh and John Jones) convinced me of my mis- 
take.” In the month before (January 27) Wesley had 
said: “ By perfection I mean the humble, gentle, patient 
love of God and our neighbor, ruling our tempers, words, 
and actions. I do not include an impossibility of falling 
from it, either in part or in whole. Therefore, I retract 
several expressions in our hymns which partly express, 
partly imply, such an impossibility.” In his Journal 
(July 25, 1774) Wesley writes: ‘‘I went on to Sheffield and 
on Tuesday met the Select Society. But it was reduced 
from sixty to twenty; and but half of these retained all 
that they once received. What a grievous error, to think 
those that are saved from sin cannot lose what they have 
gained! It is a miracle, if they do not; seeing all earth 
and hell are so enraged against them; while, meantime, 
so very few, even of the children of God, skillfully en- 
deavor to strengthen their hands,” 


382 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


11. As to the Primary Compromise. “From long ex- 
perience and observation, I am inclined to think that 
whoever finds redemption in the blood of Jesus, whoever 
is justified, has then the choice of walking in the higher 
or the lower path. I believe the Holy Spirit at that 
time sets before him the ‘more excellent way,’ and incites 
him to walk therein, to choose the narrowest path in the 
narrow way, to aspire after the heights and depths of 
holiness—after the entire image of God. But if he does 
not accept this offer he insensibly declines into the lower 
order of Christians. He still goes on in what may be 
called a good way, serving God in his degree, and finds 
mercy in the close of life through the blood of the cove- 
nant” (Sermon LXXXIX, on The More Excellent Way). 

12. Personal Conclusion. By constant association with 
an author we may come to have a conception of his real 
meaning in spite of all his inconsistencies. For our con- 
ception has been gradually formed by a number of features 
in a complex combination—by his peculiar silences; by his 
spontaneous repetitions; by the way a certain paragraph 
closes, or a certain discussion culminates; by the instant 
and eager answer to an unexpected question; and even 
by his choice of phrase in a crucial situation. My view 
of John Wesley’s meaning is of this indefensible sort. I 
am sure of his doctrine of Christian perfection, as sure 
of its essential import as I am that I walk the earth; but 
I am unable to relate my view, in an exact way, to all of 
his statements, or even to all of his very important 
statements. I will give my own personal conception 
without quotation and without defense. According to 
John Wesley, a sinner has three things the matter with 
him: First, he is guilty; second, he is morally powerless; 
and, third, his inherent and inherited disposztion 1s wrong. 
Or, as I would say, the individuality is out of harmony 
with the ideal of the moral person. When a sinner is 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 383 


justified the guilt is canceled. When he is regenerated 
he receives a nucleus of power, not enough to exterminate 
his wrong disposition, but enough “‘to fight it to a stand- 
still.”” In Christian perfection, there is no such fight 
with the disposition, “no civil war at all,” for the wrong 
impulse never enters the consciousness as motive. Now, 
when you ask, ‘‘ What becomes of the wrong disposition?”’ 
Wesley can give no fundamental answer, for the simple 
reason that he was all mixed up in his psychology. I 
am not one of those courageous men who dare to say that 
John Wesley had at the bottom of his thinking a consist- 
ent psychology. My opinion rather is that he was 
a very crude realist, but usually restless under that 
unspeakable curse, and trying to break away, without 
ever being fully able to accomplish his purpose. This 
“slavery of the man to the lump” is not surprising, if we 
only remember that many of the recent Christian books, 
and many more of the modern scientific books, have been 
written with an underlying realism so gross that any 
serious thinker should have been unwilling to grant it 
toleration at any time since the death of Immanuel Kant; 
and I almost said at any time since the death of Plato. 
But Wesley does this much for us: he holds that the civil 
war in the perfect Christian is rendered impossible by 
love, supreme love toward God and man. Whether the 
natural disposition is extirpated or only overwhelmed, it 
does not appear in a consciousness full to the brim of pure 
love. 

It will help us all, probably, if I can give a concrete 
illustration of Wesley’s view. Here is a man, a Christian 
preacher now, who has from infancy been naturally 
jealous. He is not only converted, but is a noble Chris- 
tian man, ready to sacrifice for his Lord, and equally 
teady to serve his brethren. But he is still jealous in 
disposition. Yesterday he heard another preacher’s ser- 


384 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


mon receive large commendation, and, like an uprush of 
mercury in the heat, that old feeling of jealousy rose into 
consciousness. His volition, his personality, had no more 
to do with it than his will had to do with the coming on of 
night. But the moment our preacher realizes that he is 
jealous he makes Christian battle, and forces the disposi- 
tion back, back into its cave. Now, we have here an 
exceedingly strange psychological situation, for the man’s 
struggle is plainly Christian in its revelation of the morai 
ideal, and yet the struggle reveals a motive-life which no 
Christian ought to have at all. Or, we can say this: The 
victory is truly that of a Christian man—but as a Christian 
man he should have been without the possibility of that 
kind of a battle. Now comes a pivotal inquiry. As our 
preacher grows what does his growth in grace accomplish? 
According to Wesley, the growth does not affect the in- 
herent disposition of jealousy at all; but it does bring the 
regenerate man himself to a more potent attitude, both 
of intolerance toward the disposition and of trust toward 
Jesus Christ. With this more potent personal attitude 
the man dares to believe that his Lord can and will take 
that jealousy, and every wrong disposition, out of his life. 
In full, simple faith he asks Christ to do it; and, precisely 
as when he was converted, it is all done at one stroke. 
Now what is the man’s condition? On the one hand, he 
never is conscious of jealousy. Rather does he spon- 
taneously rejoice in another man’s success. On the other 
hand, he never comes to self-consciousness without being © 
filled, like the prodigality of a freshet, with the love of 
God. This, as I understand him, is what John Wesley 
means by the conquest of inbred sin through supreme 
love. And if there is one man here to whom Wesley’s 
view of inbred sin suggests no reality, no point in kindred 
experience, he most surely is to be regarded as extremely 
fortunate. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 385 


CHRISTIAN PERFECTION AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY 

Is there, though, for this Wesleyan doctrine of Chris- 
tian perfection any support in biblical theology? In 
Wesley’s day there was such an arbitrary and fragmentary 
and superficial use of Scripture, even by the finest scholars, 
that many students have gained the impression, if not the 
belief, that the scriptural argument for Christian perfec- 
tion cannot endure the test of our modern method of 
studying the Bible. I am certain that the test can be 
endured; but, before taking up that matter, I wish to 
enter a protest against the prevailing notion that before 
we can accept a Christian doctrine every feature of it 
must have exact Scripture proof. The Bible is not to 
be used in that hard and fast manner. The Bible is the 
normative authority on Christian doctrine; but we must 
also provide for the larger and larger interpretations by 
the developing Christian consciousness. For example, 
it would be enough to show that Christian perfection is 
not in contradiction of any Scripture, but harmonizes 
with the trend of emphasis in the New Testament upon 
moral love; and is the loftiest ideal belonging to the most 
normal and most thoroughly developed Christian con- 
sciousness. If we can make it indubitable that the Bible 
itself never allows the great saints to rest until they hold 
and experience this doctrine of supreme love, we will 
have secured quite as good a basis for the doctrine as 
could be secured by any amount of precise scriptural proof. 

Saint Fohn’s Doctrine of Love. The essence of the 
message of Saint John to the Christian man is in this 
glowing passage (1 John 4. 16 to 5. 5): “God is love; and 
he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth 
in him. Herein is love made perfect with us, that we 
may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he 
is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love: 


386 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath 
punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in 
love. We love, because he first loved us. If a man say, 
I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he 
that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot 
love God whom he hath not seen. And this command- 
ment have we from him, that he who loveth God love 
his brother also. 

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is be- 
gotten of God: and whosoever loveth him that begat 
loveth him also that is begotten of him. Hereby we 
know that we love the children of God, when we love 
God and do his commandments. For this is the love 
of God, that we keep his commandments: and his com- 
mandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is begotten 
of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that 
hath overcome the world, even our faith. And who is he 
that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that 
Jesus is the Son of God?” 

When we separate the real message of this passage 
from its rhetorical mannerism, we find the connected 
points to be these: First, in Saint John’s conception of 
God the finality is love. Second, we make entrance into 
this love of God by being “begotten of God,” and this 
takes place when we believe “that Jesus is the Christ.” 
Third, we are prepared for the day of judgment by having 
this love of God made perfect in us; and this perfection of 
love can be achieved in this life—‘‘ because as he is, even 
so are we in this world.” Fourth, the marks of this per- 
fect love are that it “‘casteth out fear,” that it makes a 
man “love his brother also,” and that it enables him to 
“do his commandments,” and to have that perfect faith 
which “overcometh the world.” 

Saint Paul’s Teaching. In coming to Saint Paul's 
teaching, I wish to be sure of avoiding not only all personal 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 387 


bias, but also all Methodist bias, so I will make use of 
Professor Bartlet, Mansfield College, Oxford. In his 
article on Sanctification in the Hastings Dictionary of the 
Bible, Professor Bartlet writes of Saint Paul’s teaching 
as follows: “There is a state possible to Christians, cor- 
responding to the ideal of their calling, in which they can 
be described as ‘unblamable in holiness’ (duéunrove éy 
dywwovrvy), and into which they may be brought by 
the grace of God in this life. Therein they stand hal- 
lowed through and through (édoredeic), every part of 
their being (6A6kAqgoy iyav 76 mveipa Kal Wuyi Kai 76 odpa) 
abiding by grace in a condition fit to bear the scrutiny 
of their Lord’s presence without rebuke (dpéurrwe év 
Ty Tapovoia tov Kupiov quay "Incod Xerorod tyonOein). Such 
is the teaching of 1 Thess. 3. 13 and 5. 23. The 
fidelity of God to his purpose in calling men to be Chris- 
tians is pledged to this achievement (1 Thess. 5. 24), though 
there is no definite time, as measured from the initial 
hallowing of the Spirit in conversion, at which it must 
needs be accomplished. God, who begins the good work 
in the soul, also continues to work at its perfecting 
(émredeiv) right up to the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 
1. 6); and yet, ere that day dawns, Christians may 
become already ‘pure in purpose’ (elAcnpevetc =Christ’s 
kaBapoi rH wapdig, Matt. 5. 8) and ‘void of offense,’ 
and so remain ‘until the day of Christ’ (Phil. 1. 10). It 
is this state of realized sanctification of conduct, or 
‘walk,’ so as to ‘please God,’ that Saint Paul has con- 
stantly in view in exhorting his converts to holy living 
(for example, 1 Thess. 4. 1). This is what he means, at 
times, by his use of déy:acuéce. But the conception needs 
to be carefully guarded and explained by other aspects of 
his thought. Thus (1) it represents a growth in holiness 
rather than znto holiness out of something else; (2) it is 
conceived as realizable by a definite act of faith—claim- 


388 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ing and appropriating its rightful experience by an act of 
will informed by the living energy of the Holy Spirit— 
rather than as the cumulative result of a slow, instinctive 
process after conversion ; (3) it is not the same as absolute 
moral perfection or consummation (redeoveGar), but is 
rather the prerequisite to its more rapid and steady 
realization.” 

Our Lord’s Injunction. ‘And he said unto him, Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and 
first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two 
commandments hangeth the whole law, and the prophets s 
(Saint Matt. 22. 37-40). This one passage should forever 
settle the entire controversy as to both the ideal and the 
possible achievement in the Christian life. From the 
Old Testament (Deut. 6. 5 and Lev. 1g. 18) our Lord 
takes the two items of supreme moment, and lifts them 
into a Christian primacy of injunction. It has been said 
that our Saviour did not intend to give an actual injunc- 
tion, but only to suggest a Christian ideal. But I do not 
understand how anyone can hold such a view; fora study 
of the Saviour’s life will show that love toward God and 
love toward man were the two tests which he used in 
determining all religious values. And the fact is that 
to-day the Christian consciousness surely grasps the 
Master’s words as injunction, and responds to them as 
such, making them the final test of life. Every Christian | 
deed is Christian, every Christian thought is Christian, 
every Christian feeling 7s Christian, precisely to the extent 
that it expresses this supreme love. Ignatius clearly 
apprehended the whole thing when he said: “The begin- 
ning of life is faith, and the end is love. And these two 
being inseparably connected together, do perfect the man 
of God: while all other things which are requisite to a holy 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 389 


life follow after them. No man making a profession of 
faith ought to sin, nor one possessed of love to hate his 
brother. For He that said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God, said also, And thy neighbor as thyself.’ 


A PsycHOLoGY oF PERSONAL HOLINESS 
_ With my conception of a perfect Christian very much 
more is required than perfection in motive, and so I prefer 
the expression personal holiness. The holiness is personal 
because it is holiness exactly from the standpoint of self- 
consciousness and self-determination. What you have is 
holiness in personality. 

The Transformed Motive. As we have seen, the motive- 
life of a regenerate man is organized about the motive of 
loyalty to Christ. This motive of loyalty is not a simple 
motive, but is made up of two elements, one of love and 
the other of duty. At rare moments these two elements 
are in self-consciousness with equal force, but usually the 
sense of duty is paramount. The regenerate man, in any 
typical situation, is seeking to do his duty. His common 
remark is: “I will be true; I will not deny my Lord.” 
This loyalty is very different from the loyalty of the 
moralist; and for two reasons, namely, it is loyalty to a 
person, and it is rooted in the enthusiasm of a positive 
personal affection. And yet the Christian loyalty has 
some of the same psychological weakness which renders 
morality so ineffective. Duty always implies a conflict, 
a civil war. The sense of the ought is, like a bugle, in- 
tended to call the person into battle. And while this 
moral battle is great, it is less than the highest mood. 
You will see what I mean if you think of a home where 
husband, wife, parents, children are ever trying to do 
their duty by each other. What a dreadful home that 
would be! Not one day with the simple, rejoicing im- 
pulse of dominant love. 


390 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Now we can quickly uncover the fundamental flaw in 
the condition of the regenerate man. In his life of 
struggle to do his duty he cannot organize his inner per- 
sonal life. He has the beginning, the ground plan, so to 
speak, of an organism, but he cannot carry out the plan. 
And the reason of his failure is that when duty is para- 
mount in consciousness, even though it be the most noble 
sense of duty, the personal task is done under fear; and 
fear is never an organizing motive. 

In personal holiness this motive of loyalty is trans- 
formed into the simple motive of pure love. There re- 
mains all the ethical quality of duty, for the new supreme 
love is a moral love; but “the whip of the ought” is gone. 
The holy person does not do things because it is his duty 
to do them, but because he loves to do them. But note this 
closely, the important thing here, psychologically, is not 
the vastness of the love (that is a matter of endless growth), 
but simply that the love entirely occupies the selj-con- 
scious mood. Whenever the person comes to self-con- 
sciousness it is crammed with love to the very edges. 
Thus, there is a perfect personal organism, because all 
the man’s motivity is nothing but love in a variety of 
shapes. In the man’s personal life there is no antagonism, 
no civil war whatever. He may be tempted, as we shall 
see, but he cannot be tempted by his own inorganic con- 
dition, by his own depravity. j 

The Exhaustion of Wrong Motive. The old question, 
“Suppression or eradication?” I cannot fairly consider; 
for my psychological point of view is different from that 
of the combatants about that question. But if you will 
recall my early discussion of motivity you can see what 
I think takes place when the motive of loyalty is trans- 
formed. The new motive of pure love is not used in a 
negative conflict, but is used positively; and by this 
positive use the wrong motives are exhausted. There is 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 391 


no longer any heart-interest in them. They are mere 
ideas empty of all urgency toward the will. It is not 
that they are for the time being shut out from conscious- 
ness; no, the work is profounder than all that, they cease 
to have any existence as motives. The full use of pure 
love has exhausted them. 

The Question of Growth. Is this experience of personal 
. holiness obtained by growth? First of all, the practical 
concern in the matter leads me to say that the very word 
growth is a word which should be used, in this discussion, 
only with extreme care. For to many people growth 
means a natural, an unurged development from an im- 
planted germ. Now, there is no such unurged develop- 
ment in the Christian life. The whole thing is personally 
strenuous from conversion until death. But is personal 
holiness obtained gradually by earnest endeavor? Look- 
ing at it in the most comprehensive way, our answer should 
be in the affirmative; for the crisis itself is profoundly 
involved in all that has led up to it. Some of the evan- 
gelists to the contrary notwithstanding, no man can arbi- 
trarily leap into that faith which is the condition of the 
divine gift of supreme love. It may, now and then, 
look like such a leap, but psychologically it is not so. 
You can leap into self-assertive presumption, but never 
into real faith. 

And yet John Wesley’s emphasis upon the ultimate 
stroke is exceedingly important. For there is a great 
difference between the last phase of the regenerate life 
and the first phase of the life of supreme love. As it is 
only in the latter case that the motive of loyalty entirely 
loses the note of duty; only in the latter case that love 
absolutely fills self-consciousness to its rim; so only in 
the latter case that all the wrong motives of disposition 
are exhausted. 

But the question has been asked, ‘‘ Why, on the prin- 


- 


392 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ciple of your discussion of motivity, may a regenerate 
man, with his motive of loyalty, not simply fight his way 
into personal holiness?’’ My answer is this: To exhaust 
all wrong motive by a sheer negative fight would require 
more time than belongs to our earthly life; and even if 
there were time enough the victory would exalt the 
element of duty and not the element of love in the motive 
of loyalty. What we are after is so to escape sin as to 
escape the bondage of conscience itself, and, like God 
himself, live the life of moral love. 

But I have yet one suggestion to offer. I can con- 
ceive of another way of obtaining Christian perfection in 
love. It is, anyway, a theoretical possibility that a man 
might at the beginning of his Christian life lay hold of 
the under element of love in his loyalty, and emphasize 
that. He might by self-sacrifice express his love for 
Christ in the most complete manner. He might in prayer 
cultivate the mood of love for Christ. And so on and on 
until his love for the Saviour absolutely filled his con- 
sciousness, and his entire service was one of rejoicing love, 
and not one of moral obligation. There are a few of the 
saints whose experience is at least a hint of this kind of 
earnest growth into the fullness of love. 

Falling Away from Personal Holiness. If it be true 
that the wrong motives of our depraved, inorganic indi- 
viduality are thoroughly exhausted of their urgency, then 
the question arises, How is it possible to fall away from 
personal holiness? I answer: No Christian who is perfect 
in love can fall in the same way that a regenerate man may 
fall, by yielding to a motive which springs out of individu- 
ality into consciousness in antagonism to the moral ideal. 
But this higher life itself, as strange as it may seem at first, 
is a life of the most extreme self-assertion. It is spiritual 
self-assertion, but it is fundamental self-assertion, all the 
same. And out of this spiritual self-assertion there may | 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 393 


come three motives, any one of which may bring on 
struggle, and with the struggle the possibility of personal 
defeat. These three motives are: First, spiritual discour- 
agement. A saint in this world, in situations where Christ 
is not triumphant, can have a sort of discouragement which 
actually grows out of his supreme love for his Lord; and 
there is very great peril in such a mood. Second, spiritual 
pride. There is no experience so lofty in this life to a 
moral person as entirely to protect him from spiritual 
pride. In studying the temptations of our Saviour you 
see the whole method of its approach. A regenerate man 
is not half so likely to have this temptation as is the saint 
who is filled with love. Third, spiritual ambition. A 
holy man may have an ambition to be a great leader in the 
church, or a great preacher, or a great evangelist ; and his 
ambition may have been created by his love for Jesus 
Christ; and yet there may come such a turn in his affairs 
that he must choose between his ambition and his Master. 
That is, his ambition is so interesting to the man now that 
it stands over against the very love which created it. 

I am inclined also to think that sometimes this supreme 
love has created a subordinate love in some human per- 
son, which has grown and grown, until at last, in an 
abnormal crisis, the saint was obliged to make a choice 
between his human friend and his Saviour. But beyond 
all our psychological theorizing we positively know that 
there are peculiar temptations which are characteristic 
of the life of personal holiness; and, such temptations 
once in force, there is ever the possibility of falling away 
from the experience. The Christian battle is not over 
until through death we pass into the intermediate state. 


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THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 


“pian ee 


Possunt etiam spiritus mortuorum aliqua que hic agunter que 
necessarium est eos nosse, et quos necessarium est ea nosse, non solum 
preterita vel presentia, verum etiam futura Spiritu Dei revelante 
cognoscere.—Saint Augustine, De Cura pro Mortuis gerenda, xv. 


Sometimes I think that those we’ve lost, 
Safe lying on th’ Eternal Breast, 
Can hear no sounds from earth that mar 
The perfect sweetness of their rest; 
But when one thought of holy love 
Is stirred in hearts they love below, 
Through some fine waves of ambient air, 
They feel, they see it, and they know. 


As rays unseen—abysmal light— 

Are caught by films of silver salt 
When these are set to watch by night 

The wheelings of the starry vault,— .. 
So may the souls that live and dwell 

In one great Soul, the Fount of all, 
Feel faintest tremblings in the sphere 

On which such footsteps gently fall. 
No evil seen, no murmurs heard, 

No fear of sin, or coming loss, 
They wait in light, imperfect yet, 

The final triumphs of the Cross. 

—The Duke of Argyll, Our Dead. 


Their kingdom is not one of works and deeds, for they no longer 
possess the conditions upon which works and deeds are possible. 
Nevertheless, they live a deep spiritual life; for the kingdom of the 
dead is a kingdom of subjectivity, a kingdom of calm thought and 
self-fathoming, a kingdom of remembrance in the full sense of the 
word, in such a sense, I mean, that the soul now enters into its own 
inmost recesses, resorts to that which is the very foundation of life, 
the true substratum and source of all existence.—Hans Lassen Mar- 


tensen, Christian Dogmatics, p. 458. 


ae 


XXVIII. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE 
INTERMEDIATE STATE 


WHATEVER one may think of the doctrine of the in- 
termediate state from a merely religious standpoint, it 
has large Christian importance. For no one can see total 
Christianity, no one can grasp the philosophy of the 
Christian faith, until he has caught the peculiar signifi- 
cance of that personal experience between death and the 
resurrection. The systematic theologian is wont to con- 
sider the intermediate state as a doctrinal fragment of 
eschatology; but to me the profounder connection is 
soteriological; and I will, therefore, consider the interme- 
diate state as a further stage in the progress of the realiza- 
tion of redemption in the new man. 

Guiding Principles. Before we try to construct the 
doctrine, I wish to indicate the principles which should 
guide us in our very difficult task. 

t. Not merely the surface teaching, but also the 
ethical spirit of the New Testament must be protected. 
Take, for example, the utterance of our Lord. Suppose 
we come to some word of his message, and there are 
two fair exegetical explanations possible; then, I con- 
tend, that we are bound to accept the explanation which 
has in it the greater moral outcry, the more serious warn- 
ing for sinfulmen. If we do not do this we cannot be true 
to the severity of the moral insistence of the New Testa- 
ment. 

2. We should give to this earthly life a full philosophical 
significance. After reading certain books which teach 
that the intermediate state is a continued probation I have 
felt like saying: ‘Then, my dear man, this life is a waste. 


398 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


It would have been economical, to say the least, to have 
begun with the next life.” Just as I would not expect a 
chrysalis inside its silken cell to do all over again the 
work of a silkworm, so I would not expect the probation 
of the years to be repeated. No, we must keep a separate 
Christian meaning for this period of temporal struggle. 

3. In the same spirit of Christian economy we should 
give also to the intermediate state a full philosophical 
significance. We cannot allow any theologian to make 
out that the intermediate state is a useless pause on the 
way to glory. Something, in that state, must take place 
of everlasting value. To borrow John Wesley’s beautiful 
phrase, the saints there “will be continually ripening for 
heaven.” 

4. The view of personality and individuality and bodily 
life, already gained, must be maintained watchfully. For 
example, we must resist, on the one side, the temptation 
“to put the person to sleep’’; and, on the other side, the 
temptation to grant a social life to a bodiless person. 

5. The doctrine must be so constructed as to protect 
the awful Christian emphasis upon death, and also the 
Christian note of triumph. In Christian thought the 
intermediate state is not like Homer’s dreary world of the 
dead, where they flit about like shadows, and gibber like 
bats, and “follow vaguely and emptily the old pursuits.” 
If we are thinking of the redeemed we are to think of their 
bodiless life as one of triumph and rich experience in Jesus 
Christ. But we are never so to regard the doctrine of the 
intermediate state that it even suggests heaven. The 
terrible stress upon death is yet lingering there, for no 
man is complete, no man can be complete until the 
resurrection. 

The Construction of the Doctrine. 

1. The intermediate state is not an unconscious state. 
To a certain type of man there seems to be a fascination 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 399 


in the idea of ‘‘soul-sleep”’ between the grave and the final 
resurrection. The idea took hold of Isaac Taylor, and 
even Archbishop Whately had an evident fondness for it. 
The idea is supposed by some to have scriptural support 
in such passages as 1 Thess. 4. 14: ‘“‘ For if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that.are 
fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” But 
even if such expressions as “fallen asleep”’ be taken for 
more than a poetic turn of speech, to suggest the quiet 
rest which the saint has after death, they could be fully 
protected by saying that the intermediate state is a con- 
dition in which all objective relations are broken. Asa 
matter of fact, it has never been proved that our natural 
sleep is an unconscious state. I myself think that the 
argument to the contrary is much the stronger. What 
we know about natural sleep is that the person has 
retreated into isolation, has lost his social connections, 
has given up all objective relations. To get at him again 
you must wake him up. In his System of Biblical Psy- 
chology, in speaking of the “‘false doctrine of the soul’s 
sleep,’’ Professor Franz Delitzsch says: ‘‘Scripture calls 
death a sleep, so far as the disappearance of the soul of a 
dying person out of the body resembles the retreat of the 
soul of a person falling asleep out of corporeally evidenced 
external life; but it nowhere says that souls vanishing out 
of their bodies sleep.”’ 

But my deeper objections to this idea of ‘‘soul-sleep”’ 
are two: First, it passes beyond the real Christian em- 
phasis upon the value of the body, and takes on the first 
tinge of materialism. Second, for the important personal 
task of the intermediate state self-consciousness is very 
essential. 

2. The intermediate state is not a second probation. 
When we fairly study such a view of second probaticn as 
was given by the Andover teachers in their Progressive 


400 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Orthodoxy, we see that the inner impulse of the discussion 
is peculiar. It does not originate in the old spirit of 
universalism, nor in the new spirit of critical biblical in- 
vestigation; but rather in a spirit of equity, in the moral 
sense of fair play. Rejecting the idea of coercion, they 
demand a fair, full probation for every responsible person, 
but they can discover no way to provide such a probation 
for every person in this life. Hence there must be a 
probation beyond the grave for those who do not have 
their opportunity of test here. Indeed, it is not too 
much to say that the spirit of Christianity itself created 
the inner impulse of the Andover discussion. And if we 
regard the discussion as a strong echo from Dr. Dorner, 
the case is much the same, for his own discussion is 
thoroughly Christian in motive. 

While I am eager to grant so much, the work of the 
Andover teachers seems to me to result from a serious 
misunderstanding of Christianity. They condition per- 
sonal salvation upon actual acceptance of the historical 
Christ. This sounds intensely Christian; but it is essen- 
tially false to Christianity, for it turns salvation from a 
moral thing into a mental thing. Finally the contention 
amounts to this: Whatever a man means morally, he will 
be lost forever if he holds an untrue opinion about Jesus 
Christ. As I understand the teaching of our Lord, and 
the teaching of his greatest apostle, precisely the opposite 
is the Christian principle: a man is not saved by opinion, 
nor lost by opinion; the ultimate test is in the person’s 
moral meaning. Surely the historical Christ may, as a 
rule, be the immediate test, but this is so for a moral 
reason, namely, because the man has in conscience come 
to feel a moral obligation toward Jesus Christ. 

Were the contention as to the historical Christ a sound 
one, the Andover teachers would need to widen greatly 
their practical application. For not only the heathen 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 401 


and idiots and insane people have no adequate mental 
probation in this life—thousands upon thousands of 
people, typical in both mind and situation, have never for 
one hour mentally apprehended Christ, never for one hour 
seen him as he is. This precise division of men into two 
classes, those who have heard of Christ and those who have 
not heard of him, is so untrue to the facts. If any man 
of you imagines that every person who has read a Christian 
book or a Christian newspaper, or who has listened to 
an average Christian sermon, has heard of Christ, with any 
intellectual reality, such a man needs to make a larger 
study both of the obstinacy of human bias and of the 
impotence of human appeal. Why, there were a number 
of the finest souls and greatest minds New England ever 
produced, who lived for years almost within hailing dis- 
tance of Andover Seminary itself, and yet they never 
accepted the historical Christ—did they ever “hear of 
Fesus Christ”? If so, they are all lost, in spite of their 
nobility in moral purpose. No, no, the Andover dis- 
tinction is artificial. Hearing of Christ is not a matter of 
catching in thought the phrases and idioms of Christianity. 
As Dr. Dorner himself says: ‘Even within the church 
there are periods and cycles when the gospel does not 
approach men as that which it is.” 

The true Christian view, as I apprehend it, is essentially 
this: First, the entire possibility of personal salvation is 
based upon the atonement of Jesus Christ. Second, the 
actual Christian experience, in its definiteness and full- 
ness, does involve the necessity of belief, a mental attitude 
toward both the work of our Lord and his person. Third, 
but final salvation is a matter of personal moral bearing, 
a bearing which is manifest in repentance and faith under 
a supreme moral ideal. Fourth, thus every person with a 
conscience has in this life a fair, full probation; for he has 
a fair, full test of moral intention. As I once wrote: ‘It 


402 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


is this test of personal moral intention which gives real 
significance to this life. In all the differences of climate, 
nationality, ancestry, environment, under all business, 
in all pleasure, with the stroke of sorrow or in the tumult 
of joy, there is just one thing being said: “What do you 
mean? What do you mean?’ For this, the sun shines 
and the winds blow; for this, all formal history is made; 
for this, dreadful accidents are allowed and more dreadful 
crimes are for now left unpunished. God is giving every 
moral person a chance to settle it forever whether he will 
love righteousness or not.” 

3. A Work in Adjustment. If the intermediate state 
is not a second or continued probation, if it makes no 
change whatever in moral intention or bearing, what, 
then, is it for? First of all, and under all, its work is to 
adjust a person’s mental life to his moral meaning. This 
world is planned merely or mainly for ethical test, and we 
all reach death holding all sorts of false or fragmentary 
opinions. These opinions do not determine our central 
intention, do not even influence our personal attitude 
toward our moral ideal; but they do confuse the expression 
of intention, they do prevent entire consistency at the 
point of judgment. Therefore, in the intermediate state, 
our relation to truth and reality is to be fully cleared 
up. No longer will a perfect purpose be held back by an 
imperfect judgment. No longer can any man’s moral 
meaning be hidden under a false opinion. 

This clearing up of the mental life may result in a new 
formal adjustment to Jesus Christ. If a man in his 
earthly probation has really come to a spirit of repentance 
and faith; if he passes out of his probation longing for all 
Christ Jesus is, although he has never known him, then, 
in the intermediate state, the formal adjustment to his 
Saviour will be instant and complete. As Dr. Shedd 
once wrote: ‘‘For although the Redeemer has not been 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 403 


presented historically and personally to him, yet he has 
the cordial and longing disposition to believe in him.” 
Said in one positive sentence: In the intermediate state 
every man must see Jesus Christ as he really is; and seeing 
him as he is, every man who is in harmony with Christ’s 
nature will accept him; while every man who is not in 
harmony with Christ’s nature will reject him. Thus the 
intermediate state merely turns the essential experience 
into the formal experience. 

We have, though, another and a most difficult point in 
adjustment, namely, to adjust to Jesus Christ those 
children who die before they have any personal and moral 
bearing. I now remember only one Arminian theologian 
who seriously tries to say a consistent word concerning 
this difficult matter. Indeed, the usual Arminian pro- 
cedure is to make the stoutest contention against Cal- 
vinism up to this point, then suddenly to borrow the very 
pith of the Calvinistic philosophy, disguising it under 
some such phrase as “unconditional regeneration,” and 
so to coerce the children into salvation. Whatever failure 
we may have in our thinking, let us never do that! Never 
should we admit that any human being can be saved by 
omnipotence. Never, never, should we admit that any 
human being will be saved by pure divine favoritism 
. worked out in a providential plan. I say it carefully, but 
I say it with every atom of manhood I have, that if one 
moral person can, anywhere, by any process whatsoever, 
be coerced into righteousness, then all our sense of God- 
given equity demands that all men shall be saved. Could 
I be a necessitarian for one swift instant, I would need 
to be a Universalist forever. 

My own conclusions as to infant salvation are as fol- 
lows: First, it is a fact of Christian consciousness that we 
all now believe that those children are saved who die 
before they reach personal responsibility. Our dis- 


404 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


cussion, therefore, is not for the purpose of getting a 
belief; but merely for consistency, merely to harmonize 
with the fundamental principles of our theology a belief 
which we already have. Second, these children are 
persons. We cannot for one moment tolerate the teach- 
ing, however poetically couched, that these children, 
snatched from our homes, are nondescripts, more than 
thing, but less than person. There can be no such non- 
descript. In the intermediate state all these children 
come to full personal experience just as surely as our 
children do in this life. Third, these children are moral 
persons. Not only do they come to self-consciousness 
with all the motives originally intrinsic to created per- 
sonality, but also they feel the urgency of these motives 
as persons under moral demand. Fourth, under moral 
demand and with this contrariety of motive, these chil- 
dren apprehend and freely accept their Saviour; and, 
in companionship with him, they achieve, in the inter- 
mediate state, the full equivalent of a perfect Christian 
experience. Thus, they are saved under a personal and 
moral test, but not in a formal probation. Fifth, the 
reason these children are treated in this special manner, 
the reason for their being taken out of this life and 
granted an essential test in place of a formal test, is, I 
conjecture, this: They are exceptional persons who have 
no need of a prolonged probation to fix their moral 
destiny; and their death is so entangled with the pro- 
bation, or with the development, of other persons as to 
be of more providential worth than is their continued life 
in this world. That is, they die not to get advantage but 
to give service. And yet they are peculiarly, honored. 
To be so selected by our Lord, to be taken at Gnce into 
his profound life, to get their entire Christian education, 
so to speak, directly from him, should be regardedas a 
glory beyond our largest estimate in speech. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 405 


If to any one of you this view of infant salvation 


seems to be, either practically or philosophically, the same 


; 
; 


thing as to open up the intermediate state, as a formal 
contingent process in probation, to persons who in this life 
come to a clear realization of the difference between right 
and wrong, I can only say: “I am totally unable to look 
at the matter in your way, and totally unable to sanction 
any sort of coercion.” 

4. Getting Ready for the New Race. But the quiet, rich 
wonder of the intermediate state does not become manifest 
until we relate it to the final social organism of the Re- 
deemed. When at the resurrection all the saints take up 
their full membership in that new race of which Christ 
Jesus is both the dynamic and the formal center, they are 
to serve each other, and to fit into each other, in the most 
absolute fashion. This does not mean that personality 
will be weakened, or that individuality will be given up; 
but it does mean that every member of the new race will 
be made free from all that is untrue or unreal. I am not 
now thinking of the wasteful clashing in polemics. Cer- 
tainly there could be no Christian organism were polemics 
to last over into eternity. But polemics will not last over, 
for the development of the Christian consciousness itself 
will do away with every phase of polemics long before the 
ultimate church begins her splendid history in this world. 
No, I am thinking of completeness in supplemental fel- 
lowship and service. Perfectly to enter the life of his 
fellow men, perfectly to serve them, perfectly to aug- 
ment their being with his own, the saint needs to 
be at his best. And he cannot be at his normal 
best if he thinks that which is untrue or believes that 


which is unreal. It is not now a matter entirely of 


| 
| 


| 
| 


personal motive and moral character; it is also a matter 
of sound judgment, and integrity in the make-up of the 
total manhood. I claim that service is injured anywhere 


406 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


by every particle of error held by a man; and not even two 
men can have absolute companionship, if either one of 
them has an iota of untruth clinging to his mind. Moral 
love and reality are both required for the organism of the 
new race. Moral love is gained in this life. Reality is 
gained in the intermediate state. 

5. The Question of Method. In the method of the 
intermediate state there are three features: First, revela- 
tion. It is not necessary to hold that all truth and all 
reality will be given in the intermediate state. We can- 
not be sure that all truth and all reality can ever be com- 
municated to finite creatures. But they can have 
enough so that they will live altogether in the vitalities of 
truth and reality. And, then, perhaps, there will be a 
larger and yet larger revelation forever. Second, perject 
introspection. Many times I have made reference to a 
man’s substructure of individuality, that vast mystery of 
being which is the basis of personal manhood. From an 
ethical standpoint this individuality is mastered when it 
no longer antagonizes the moral ideal in a self-conscious- 
ness filled with love for God and man. And yet this 
moral mastery is in a sense superficial, for by it no man 
comes thoroughly to fathom himself, to know what he is. 
Indeed, he cannot in this earthly life know what he is, | 
‘for his self-consciousness is too feeble, too flashing, too ~ 
fleeting. But in the unbroken quiet of the intermediate — 
state, with no body, no objective demand, no social dis- 
traction, the man can enter the recesses of his individu- : 
ality and can find out precisely what he is, and so can ~ 
finish his great task of self-personalization. Thus, we ; 
have in the intermediate state, the last triumph of per- — 
sonality in the completed personal individual. Third, 
companionship with Christ. I will startle yok with a 
thought which you have never had before: In all his 
Christian history, from his conversion on through the long 


L 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 407 


reaches vu, eternity, the intermediate state 1s the only period 
when the redeemed man is altogether alone with his Saviour. 
Saint Paul calls it being ‘‘at home with the Lord.’”’ Do 
you remember his inspiring words? ‘We are of good 
courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from 
the body, and to be at home with the Lord.’’ And this 
thought of companionship with Christ is to lend its 
inspiration to our consideration of the entire purpose and 
method of the intermediate state. The revelation is from 
Christ. The introspection is with the presence and help 
of Christ. The minute preparation for the coming social 
life in the new race is under the constant teaching ot 
Christ. His own people, whom he hath redeemed, he 
prepares, now alone and personally, for their glorious 
destiny. 


XXIX. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY 


Tuts doctrine, like that of the intermediate state, is 
usually discussed as an important division in eschatology. 
And there are reasons why it should be discussed in such 
a connection, Were we thinking of all men in their 
relation to the last things, surely we would need to treat 
the general resurrection as one of those last things. But 
according to my view, we can best understand the totality 
of redemption by keeping at the front its positive inten- 
tion and actual accomplishments. Therefore, it is in 
my plan to make emphatic the redeemed, and to give 
merely an incidental reference to those who reject 
Jesus Christ. Besides all this, it is, I am confident, 
fairer, and more illuminating, to consider the everlasting 
ruin of those who will not be saved, as a problem in 
philosophical theodicy. As, then, my purpose is to em- 
phasize the positive process of redemption, I wish to 
bring out the important fact that the redeemed man, the 
new man in Christ, is made complete only by the resur- 
rection of the body. Here I will quote a striking passage 
from Chancellor Bernard’s article on “ The Resurrection”’: 
“Saint Paul’s expression of Christian hope is not deliver-— 
ance from the body, but redemption of the body. The 
redemption of the body is the last stage in the great 
process of adoption (vio#ecia) by which we are made 
‘sons of God’ ’”’ (Rom. 8. 23). : 

Points in Personal Belief. The full discussion of the 
resurrection runs necessarily into such complications of © 
detail as to be out of perspective with the plan of this — 
book. I will, therefore, barely state my personal con- | 
clusions; | 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 409 


1. The body of the resurrection is not produced by 
the development of an indestructible germ which is 
within the body of this life. 

2. It is not produced by a natural force which in some 
way belongs to the body of this life. 

3. It is not an ethereal body which, before or at’ the 
time of death, was within the physical body as the shell 
is within the husk of a nut. 

4. It is not the literal body of the grave reconstructed, 
whether by using all, or many, or a few, or even one, of 
the old material atoms. All this chasing through the 
universe to get the identical particles of matter, or enough 
of them to constitute ‘‘a proper identity,”’ is not only an 
absurdity in philosophy, but a serious misinterpretation 
of Saint Paul. 

5. The body of the resurrection is not the result of any 
natural law, any habitual divine volition, such as brings 
on the buds and blossoms of spring. 

6. The body of the resurrection zs a purely spiritual 
body (not bound by the laws of this world) ; made by the 
direct and new intention of God; but so made as to be 
conditioned by the body of the grave. Every glorified body 
is in occasional connection with a single physical body 
just as really as my body to-day is in occasional connec- 
tion with the body of my childhood. The child’s body 
conditions the man’s body—is the start, the initial in- 
dicative, the determining fundament, in God’s own process 
of identity. The body I have now is what it is because 
the body of my childhood was what it was. I have lost 
every old particle of matter, times and times, but I have 
remained in my own category of identity. Not for an in- 
stant has my body leaped into another man’s category. 
Precisely so a man’s body of glory 7s his own body under 
the law of identity, and can be traced back to its condition- 
ing clue, namely, the body which that one man had at the 


410 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


time of death. Every abiding element, the entire intrinsic 
plan and meaning of the material body, is by the resurrec- 
tion brought again into fact and made glorious. Indeed, 
were it feasible to enter into a thorough philosophical 
discussion to show what matter actually is, such a dis- 
cussion would, I believe, make it evident that the body 
of the resurrection is nothing other than God's volitional 
repetition of the body of the grave—with splendid additions. 

Saint Paul’s Analogy. ‘But some one will say, How 
are the dead raised? and with what manner of body do 
they come? Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself 
sowest is not quickened except it die: and that which 
thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but 
a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other 
kind: but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, 
and to each seed a body of its own” (1 Cor. 15. 35-38). 

Against bald literalism Saint Paul distinctly pro- 
nounces when he says, ‘Thou sowest not the body that 
shall be;’’ and his entire teaching may be gathered up in 
the phrase, “‘resurrection by seed-process.” Here is a 
fair paraphrase of what the apostle says: “You place a 
seed in the ground; and by means of that seed you get a 
precisely corresponding plant, you know not how; even so 
you place in the ground a natural body, and by means of 
that, in God’s own mysterious process, you get another, 
a spiritual body, which is to be identified with the buried 
body as a plant is exactly identified with its own s Pay 

A Catholic Union in Him. It is not necessary again 
specially to note the social significance of the body; or to 
show that the Christian doctrine of the resurrection gives 
the most important emphasis to that social significance. 
But we do need to look more closely at the structural 
meaning of the saint’s glorified body. It is, on the one 
hand, a spiritual repetition of the body of his temporal 
probation, Thus comes the accentuation of the distinct 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 4Il 


person himself. Never is he to lose connection with his 
own past. Not only by memory, but by his very ob- 
jective life itself, he is to be reminded that he is the same 
man who lived that life on earth. Most seriously I urge 
you to work out the wholesomeness of this thought that 
the line of identity is everlastingly sacred, that no man, 
tn all the solemn eternities, can begin all over again. 

Not only so, but this repetition of the earthly body is 
a perpetual objective insistence upon the fact that every 
redeemed man once belonged to that old Adamic race 
which was broken up by death and because of sin. Thus, 
the entire social life of the new race will ever suggest the 
sad history of the old race. No saint can ever make a 
gesture, or look into the face of another saint, without 
projecting large hints of the story of a costly redemption. 
Indeed, the whole objective life of the saints in glory is 
so planned that it has memorial force, like a great sacra- 
ment. 

The inspiring point, though, is now to come. The 
glorified body is, on the other hand, made according to the 
type of our Lord’s own glorious body. And, as you quick- 
ly see, thus comes the emphasis upon the new race 
in Christ. The one distinct personal individual is kept 
emphatic; but he is, even in his bodily life, brought into 
union with his Redeemer. Thus the new race is formally, 
as it was before spiritually, given actual solidarity with 
Jesus Christ. There is a mighty social republic, kingdom, 
church, where every item of association is a tribute to 
“Him who hath redeemed us.”’ In the Gospel of the 
Resurrection, there is one great passage which I am eager 
to give you now: “In this way the doctrine of the resur- 
rection turned into a reality the exquisite myth of Plato. 
. . . And, at the same time the notion of civic union, in 
which lay so much of the strength and virtue of classical 
life, is freed from the dangers of party and class, and 


412 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


extended to the utmost limits of human brotherhood. 
_. . Christianity satisfies the instinct and harmonizes 
the idea of a special relationship to a divine Lord with 
that of a catholic union in him.” 


THE THREE COSMICAL SPHERES 


I had written a paragraph on “the three cosmical 
spheres,” when, to my surprise, I found it almost word 
for word in Bishop Martensen’s Dogmatics. Evidently 
my own work was nothing but Martensen as held in mem- 
gry through a number of years. And yet my own move- 
ment in thought naturally would have reached the same 
conception. Here is the passage from the Christian Dog- 
matics: “According to the fundamental representations 
of revelation, the life of man is to be lived in three cos- 
mical spheres: First, the sphere in which we dwell in the 
flesh, év sapxi, our present life, whose prevailing bias is 
sensible and ovtward—for not only is all spiritual activity 
conditioned by sense, but the spirit groans under the 
tyranny of the flesh; next, a sphere in which we live, é 
nvespatt, wherein spirituality and inwardness is the 
fundamental feature, and this is the intermediate state; 
and, lastly, a sphere in which we shall again live in the 
body, but in a glorified body, and in a glorified nature, 
which is perfection, the renewal and perfecting of this 
world to its final goal” (comment on 2 Cor. 5. 2, 8). 





THE FIFTH DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
2DEMPTION REALIZED IN THE NEW RACE 


ae 


Das Reich Gottes ist das von Gott gewahrleistete hochste Gut der 
durch seine Offenbarung in Christus gestifteten Gemeinde; allein es 
ist als das hochste Gut nur gemeint, indem es zugleich als das sitt- 
liche Ideal gilt, zu dessen Verwirklichung die Glieder der Gemeinde 
durch eine bestimmte gegenseitige Handlungsweise sich unter einander 
verbinden.—Albrecht Ritschl, Unterricht in der christlichen Religion, 


8 5. 


Our Lord nowhere simply identifies his kingdom, or the kingdom of 
God, with the church which he came to found. As we have seen, 
his kingdom is visibly represented in his church; but there are in- 
superable obstacles to treating the two things as convertible. Our 
Lord founded a society which was to be visible like a city seated on a 
hill that cannot be hid (Matt. 5. 14), but the kingdom of God is visible 
only to faith—the kingdom of God is within you—the church is 
present and actual, the kingdom of God is present and yet future, 
actual and yet ideal. The kingdom of God is the supreme end, the 
visible church a means and instrument to that end. The kingdom of 
God is in its essential idea the reign of God; those over whom he 
reigns, and who answer to that reign by loyal allegiance constitute a 
kingdom in the sense of a body of subjects, and this is the ideal toward 
which the church must ever be advancing —Archibald Robertson, Reg- 
num Dei, the Bampton Lectures, rgo1, pp. 75, 76. 


The kingdom of Christ, not being a kingdom of this world, is not 
limited by the restrictions which fetter other societies, political or re- 
ligious. It is in the fullest sense free, comprehensive, universal. . . . 

It is most important that we should keep this ideal definitely in 
view, and I have therefore stated it as broadly as possible. Yet the 
broad statement, if allowed to stand alone, would suggest a false im- 
pression, or at least would convey only a half truth. .. . The concep- 
tion, in short, is strictly an ideal, which we must ever hold before our 
eyes, which should inspire and interpret ecclesiastical polity, but which 
nevertheless cannot supersede the necessary wants of human society, 
and, if crudely and hastily applied, will lead only to signal failure. As 
appointed days and set places are indispensable to her efficiency, so 
also the church could not fulfill the purposes for which she exists, 
without rulers and teachers, without a ministry of reconciliation—in 
short, without an order of men who may in some sense be designated 
a priesthood. . . . But the priestly functions and privileges of the 
Christian people are never regarded as transferred or even delegated 
to these officers. They are called stewards or messengers of God, serv- 
ants or ministers of the church, and the like; but the sacerdotal 
title is never once conferred upon them. The only priests under the 
gospel, designated as such in the New Testament, are the saints, the 
members of the Christian brotherhood.— Joseph Barber Lightfoot, The 
Christian Ministry, Dissertation I in Com. on Philippians. 


XXX. THE CHURCH OF OUR LORD 


The Kingdom of God. Before stating my own view 
of the significance of the ‘“‘kingdom of God” I wish to 
call your attention to a scholar’s protest which has been 
made by Professor Briggs against the modern Protestant 
practice of sharply distinguishing between the meaning 
of Baovdeia and the meaning of éxAyoia, as these terms 
are used in the Word of God. He says: “ Let me say that 
I have carefully examined all the uses of these and cognate 
terms in both Testaments, and as a result of my investi- 
gations I declare that nothing can be more false than the 
distinction between ‘kingdom’ and ‘church’ asserted by 
many moderns. These are chiefly men who are dis- 
pleased with the historic church and seek refuge in the 
kingdom as taught by Jesus Christ in the conceit that 
this is something larger and better. In fact, ‘church’ 
and ‘kingdom’ differ only as synonymous terms. There 
is nothing of importance which can be asserted of the 
kingdom of God which may not be also asserted of the 
church of God, if we faithfully use biblical material with- 
out speculation and theorizing. Jesus is King of the 
kingdom, and he reigns over it, subduing all external 
enemies under his feet, or transforming them by his grace 
into citizens of his kingdom. He is also the head over all 
things to his church. The church and the kingdom are 
coextensive; both are Old Testament institutions and 
New Testament institutions; both are institutions of this 
world, and both are eternal institutions of the world to 
come; both are organizations in the midst of the world 
and of the universe; both will eventually subdue and 
absorb the world and also the universe; the one is as 


416 TEE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


spiritual as the other; the one is as external as the 
other.” 

The conclusions of Professor Briggs as a biblical scholar 
have, and should have, great weight with us; still I can 
but feel that in this instance his entire study of the scrip- 
ture teaching has been superficial. When, for one exam- 
ple, our Lord says, “Thy kingdom come,” can we believe 
that by kingdom he means exactly the church which he 
came to establish and to which he committed the sacra- 
ment of baptism? I cannot believe so. It is contrary 
to the whole tone and drift of his teaching. I am quite 
ready to admit that now and again the two Greek words, 
as we see them in the New Testament, slip into each 
other’s province, and that a line of absolute consistency 
in usage it is impossible to trace through all the various 
writings; but I hold that there are plain indications of 
facts which are not the same; and that these facts should 
not be confused in our thinking, if we are ever fully to 
understand the Word of God and all Christian history. 

My own view I can give economically as follows: 

1. Let us start with God’s unrealized plan to have an 
ultimate kingdom. Most comprehensively considered, 
the kingdom of God is the final, universal, absolute, 
everlasting dominion of God. All persons, all events, 
all creation will express the one fact—God rules. This is 
the sublime ideal toward which the universe struggles. 
But there is another sense in which the kingdom of God 
is a present reality. It has already begun in the hearts 
of angels and saints. And all its great spiritual laws are 
in operation—‘‘the world of invisible laws by which God 
is ruling and blessing his creatures.” The entire move- 
ment in the moral government is in an important sense 
expressive of the kingdom of God. 

2. In this ultimate kingdom of God there is to be a 
cosmic sweep. The final universe—everything as formed 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 417 


and placed and used—every person in either his character 
or his condition—will manifest the sovereign holiness of 
God. I mean that in God’s ultimate kingdom the entire 
cosmos will not merely conform to his will, but will show 
forth his nature. The obedience will reveal something 
more than power, it will reveal the perfect divine holiness. 

3. Within this cosmic kingdom, there is to be ‘the 
kingdom of heaven.’”’ This inner kingdom will be made 
up of all holy persons, all those having ‘the vision of 
God,”’ and experiencing the ineffable felicity of the divine 
fellowship. The beginning of this kingdom of heaven is 
in the present life of the angels of God; but the kingdom 
will be fully realized only after the general resurrection. 

4. Within this kingdom of heaven there is to be “the 
kingdom of Christ.” This is a very definite matter, even 
that new race of men redeemed by the death of our Lord, 
and organized in him, and glorified in bodily conformity to 
him. This kingdom of Christ is also now in existence in 
an incomplete way, and comprehends all those persons 
who are by saving faith actually joined to Jesus Christ. 
The test is this actual union with Christ and not whether 
the persons are members of the Christian church or not. 

5. These three, the cosmic kingdom, the kingdom of 
heaven, and the kingdom of Christ, are to be conceived 
under the figure of three concentric circles (recall our 
discussion of the moral government) ; so that the kingdom 
of heaven is the inner dominion of the cosmic kingdom, 
and the kingdom of Christ is the inner dominion of the 
kingdom of heaven, and also the innermost dominion of 
the cosmic kingdom, and all three constitute the kingdom 
of God. 

6. This kingdom of God, taken in its entirety, is the 
kingdom of God the Father, which is the kingdom re- 
ferred to in the Lord’s Prayer. The full consummation 
of this kingly dominion of God the Father is to take place 


418 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


when our Saviour “shall deliver up the kingdom to God, 
even the Father, . . . that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 
15. 24-28). This does not mean that Christ is to become 
anything less to his own people whom he hath redeemed, 
but merely that Christ and his kingdom are to become 
an integrant feature of the larger kingdom of God over 
which only the Father is to be the absolute and everlasting 
Ruler. It is the last extreme emphasis of that idea of 
the inherent subordination of the Son of God which is a 
fundamental idea in the whole system of Christian doc- 
trine. 

7. What, then, is the church of our Lord? It is the 
concrete exponent of the kingdom of Christ. It is a 
formal organization of men which stands for the kingdom 
of Christ while that kingdom is in the process of forma- 
tion. Not exactly, as Kahnis said, “an gon of the 
kingdom”’; but rather, as Draseke said, ‘‘the workshop of 
the kingdom’’; or, as Neander most beautifully said, “the 
seminary for the heavenly community.’”’ I am willing to 
allow just this much: The church of our Lord belongs to 
his tentative kingdom; but it is not coextensive with that 
kingdom (even as that kingdom exists to-day), and can- 
not be coextensive with it until, anyway, there is what 
Saint Paul terms “‘a glorious church, not having spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph. 5. 27). But even this 
admission is somewhat misleading, for to many it will 
suggest that the difference between the kingdom and the 
church is merely that one is perfect and the other is im- 
perfect. That, though, is not the fundamental difference. 
The fundamental difference is one of essential structure. 
The kingdom is a simple personal and spiritual organism. 
The church is a formal and complex organism. The 
kingdom is a life of fellowship mediated only through 
Jesus Christ. The church is a machine; at its best a 
machine full of life and expressing life, and yet a machine. 


a 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 419 


In its worship and in all its service the church has, and 
must have, some sort of outward instrument—forms, 
symbols, creeds, what not; but the kingdom needs only 
the complete man. If, as some believe, the Christian 
church itself is to be purified, completed, glorified, and 
then taken into eternity for everlasting worship and 
service, even then it will not be, strictly speaking, 
the kingdom of our Lord, but merely the formal in- 
strument of that kingdom. It will be, perhaps, to 
the kingdom as a whole what the glorified body will 
be to the one moral person—the instrumental means of 
perfect objective manifestation. The kingdom of Christ 
may, so to speak, show its life to the entire universe 
through a glorified church—Saint Paul’s évdotog éxxAnoia. 
The Holy Catholic Church. As Protestants we cannot 
afford to surrender this great historic phrase. Nor 
should we transform its original meaning into that of 
“the invisible church of Christ.’ The holy catholic 
church is precisely the visible church of our Lord, that is, 
the entire body of persons who are in actual organization 
about the two points, the gospel and the sacraments. 
Whenever a company of men unite, in any way whatso- 
ever, to maintain the preaching of the gospel of redemp- 
tion, and to secure the administration of the sacrament 
of baptism, and to have Christian communion in the 
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, that company of men 
constitutes a Christian church; and the sum total of such 
churches is the holy catholic church. Forms of ecclesi- 
astical government, and preferences in ceremony, and 
peculiarities of denominational belief, have no large 
significance; the essential points of organization are 
simply the two sacraments and the preaching of the 
gospel. This church of our Lord is holy, not in the sense 
that every member is now entirely holy in personal life, 
but in the sense that the church is our Lord’s own instru- 


420 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ment in building up a holy kingdom. The whole plan 
and movement of the church are unto holiness. This 
holy church is catholic in the sense that it is for all men. 
In it there is no ethnic limitation. Its ambition is for 
world-wide conquest. Catholicity is to the church just 
what the racial plan is to the kingdom of Christ. It is the 
humanity-note. In this holy catholic church there are 
three kinds of membership: First, there is formal mem- 
bership. In many situations there are men who submit 
to all the tests used, and become members of an organized 
church, and yet do not have any redemptional relation to 
Jesus Christ. Of course the question soon arises, 
“ Are these formal members really members of the church 
of our Lord at all?” I myself find it best to regard them 
as in the holy catholic church, but not members of the 
kingdom of Christ. This view renders possible large em- 
phasis upon the absolute need of having a Christian ex- 
perience; and yet, with this emphasis, a certain practical 
wisdom in pastoral work. And, further, the view is 
helpful when we try fairly to estimate the situation in 
any of the great national churches, or when we try to 
understand the condition of the whole Christian world. 
Second, there is dynamic membership. I mean by this 
more than any one term can denote. The power of the 
holy catholic church is due to the Holy Spirit. But his 
action is (not wholly conditioned) largely related to those 
members of the church who are also members of the king- 
dom of redemption. They may be called the dynamic 
personal points of his action. For example, the force 
of a sermon, or the influence of a sacrament, depends, in 
quite a measure, upon the reality and vitality of the 
Christian experience of the congregation. And so every 
member of the church who actually lives in Christ Jesus 
adds a veritable dynamic to the church. Third, there is 
membership by Christian claim. The church of our Lord 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 421 


has the right and the duty to claim the helpless. She 
should take into her atmosphere and association and (if 
possible) service all people who are unable to make a 
choice for themselves—not only all irresponsible children, 
but all the feeble-minded, and all those unfortunate souls 
who have been mentally wrecked by woes too terrible 
for human fortitude. Of course, there are involved here 
serious questions in church economy, but they all can be 
met and mastered, if we are determined to make the 
church of Christ a worthy instrument of the kingdom of 
Christ. 

But surely you will not misunderstand me here—you 
will not think that I intend to teach the possibility of a 
mechanical salvation. No human being is saved, or can 
be saved, by membership in the holy catholic church— 
salvation is only by personal union with Jesus Christ. 

The Organism of the Church. To appreciate the phi- 
losophy of the organism of the holy catholic church, we 
need to remember that, as the concrete exponent of the 
kingdom of Christ or the new race, the church is also 
designed to be a brotherhood of moral persons dominated 
by Jesus Christ. Thus there are three features to be 
protected and emphasized in the church-organism: 1. The 
personal. 2. The societary. 3. The spiritual, in fellow- 
ship with Christ. I can get at these three features most 
lucidly, I think, by comparing the organism of the church 
to the structure of an ellipse, with its two foci and a major 
axis. 

First, in the church, there is the personal focus. This 
is the preaching of the gospel. Not merely the Christian 
sermon, but all personal testimony, everything which is 
done in the church to show what the gospel means to 
Separate persons. The purpose is to bring about the 
conquest of the world by the church through this personal 
feature of preaching. And how wonderful it all is, this 


422 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


giving to the world the entire message of redemption 
through the experience of men! The most effective 
Christian sermon is really nothing other than a chapter 
of the inner life of a person who lives in our Lord Jesus 
Christ. The moment the sermon loses that personal 
quality, that moment the sermon ceases to be effective. 
Do you not begin to apprehend the philosophy—one 
might almost say the strategy—of this personal focus? 
Why, we reach the great Christian verities through each 
other, our very apprehension of the finalities of the gospel 
is only by entering the living personal experience of Chris- 
tian men. And so every time you grasp a Christian truth 
it prepares you to understand better the life of Christian 
men; and to live—helpfully, joyously, to live with them 
forever. Thus, the whole Christian brotherhood comes 
to its mighty certainties of faith in one great entanglement 
of personal experience, the very emphasis upon person- 
ality making a contribution to ultimate fellowship. 


Second, the societary focus. But it is not enough to | 


preach the gospel through persons; the Christian society, 
as an organized body, must have a chance to express itself. 


Hence the second focus, which is the focus of the Christian — 
sacraments. Not now are we to consider the significance ~ 


of each sacrament; I merely wish you to note the fact and 
worth of the sacramental idea in the organism of the 
church. This focus is a perfect balance to the other. 
As the aim of preaching is to stir up personality, to make 
men think, to keep the personal life from stagnation, so 
the sacramental aim is to fill consciousness with the sense 
of Christian companionship, to make the person realize 
that he is only a part of the large Christian community. In 
both sacraments it is the holy catholic church which 
dominates the scene. The person is there surely, but he 
is there for submission and fellowship. His very medita- 
tion and confession and consecration are in the midst. 


a 


Ee 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 423 


Third, there is (to keep our ellipse in mind) a major 
axis. This major feature in the organism of the church 
is, some would insist, the Holy Spirit. Such insistence 
is a mistake. Indeed, there is, I fear, in our day, an 
emphasis placed upon the Holy Spirit which is not quite 
true to the New Testament. To protect with words 
every side of the matter is extremely difficult ; but I will 
say this: No emphasis is ever to be given to the Holy Spirit 
which, n any moment or in any degree, shuts our Lord out 
from the Christian consciousness. The real work of the 
Spirit always exalts Christ; that is his mission. As to the | 
church, the Holy Spirit is the very life of it all. The 
preaching, the sacraments, the service, are literally 
nothing without his presence and power. But the major 
axis is only Jesus Christ our Redeemer. And just what 
do I mean by this? I mean that the spiritual organism 
of the church requires actual fellowship with Christ. 
You have a complete organism to just the extent that in 
the sacraments and in the preaching and in all the work 
the people are in conscious union with Jesus Christ. 
This implies, you easily perceive, that it is only 
dynamic membership which contributes to the spiritual 
organism of the church. O, if we all could only feel this; 
if every Christian preacher could only realize that size 
is not what the organism requires for its completeness 
and efficiency, but fellowship, actual fellowship with 
Jesus Christ. If you say that conversions are the test of 
church efficiency, I will say that conversions will follow 
if the church is in living union with our Lord. 

A further word of caution is necessary in this connec- 
tion, owing to certain widespread tendencies: Fellowship 
with Christ cannot normally be secured in the church by 
exalting his person at the expense of his atonement. It 
verily seems as if the whole realm of Christian scholarship ° 
Were trying to minimize the death of the Son of God. 


424 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


The tendency is not only wrong, but even pernicious. 
Fully to enter into the life of Christ, one needs to be 
overwhelmed by his death as Saint Paul was overwhelmed 
by it until he could hardly think a thought which was not 
colored by its sacrificial meaning. 

Christian Unity. At this point I cannot speak an 
effective word; for I am out of sympathy with every effort 
to crush out the denominational churches in the name of 
Christian unity. I believe in uniting all those churches 
where the fundamental interpretation of the Christian 
faith is the same; but I do not believe in asking any 
church to yield any real conviction. In the present state 
of things there is more Christian vitality in these denom- 
inational convictions than in all the superficial combina- 
tions of forced external conformity. Solidarity is the 
ultimate, is the Christian ideal; but real Christian soli- 
darity cannot come by sacrificing personality to ma- 
chinery. I fully appreciate the dreadful fact of waste; 
but a waste of life is better than any artificial economy. 


XXXI. THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS 


ComING now closer to the Christian sacraments, we 
find that they have, without losing at all their societary 
significance in the organism of the church, very important 
functions in relation to the Christian person himself. 

1. Each sacrament is a token of personal Christian in- 
tention. In baptism the candidate expresses his personal 
intention of entering the church of Christ. Here his self- 
decision is something more than to submit to Jesus Christ 
as his Redeemer, it is to acknowledge Christ’s command, 
and “to be a Christian man before the world.” Thus 
baptism becomes a public profession of the faith. - In the 
Lord’s Supper there is no less an expression of personal 
_ intention, for the communicant, by his answer to the 
invitation, declares that he intends “to lead a new 
life.’ Thus the member of the church is made often 
to recommit himself to the Christian purpose, and so 
there is repeatedly a renewal of that intense personal 
bearing in self-decision which he had as a candidate in 
baptism. 

2. Each sacrament zs a symbol of an event in grace. 
Baptism is to us the symbol of regeneration. To be 
comprehensively true to all the different ways in which 
the writers of the New Testament associate baptism with 
salvation, we should, I think, use a larger fact than 
regeneration, and say that Christian baptism is the sym- 
bol of redemptional union with Christ. Allowing such 
usage, baptism would be, first, a token of personal inten- 
tion to enter the church of Christ; and, second, a symbol 
of actual entrance into the kingdom of Christ. But, asa 
matter of history, the Christian consciousness has never 


426 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


treated all passages of Scripture as of equal importance; 
and, in this instance, the Christian tendency has been to 
make baptism precisely a symbol of regeneration. The 
Lord’s Supper is the symbol of the death of Christ, or, 
more exactly, a sign of the personal appropriation of the 
person of Christ in his death. By grace the person takes 
the crucified Saviour as a spiritual nourishment of soul; 
and the use of the bread and wine symbolize that deep 
event of grace. The phrase “by grace” means that the 
communicant. receives the extraordinary aid of the Holy 
Ghost. 

3. Each sacrament is a means of grace. We are to 
understand this point, first of all, in the sense that the 
full use of either of the sacraments enables a person to 
open up his inner life more largely to the personal opera- 
tion of the Spirit of God, and this more searching work of 
the Holy Spirit always results in Christian growth. But, 
in this connection, there also comes to mind the old 
question of “baptismal regeneration,” a question con- 
cerning which a sane word is now very much needed. 
Several Protestant New Testament scholars, in their ex- 
position of ‘“‘the washing of regeneration” (see Titus 3. 
4-7), hold that Christian baptism is, in this phrase, most 
closely connected with regeneration, not merely because 
it symbolizes it, “but also, and chiefly, because it effects 
it.” At once we want to know what exactly is meant 
by the expression “effects it.” If the intention is to 
teach that baptism is automatically effective of regenera- 
tion, or even that baptism is a fixed and only condition of 
regeneration, the view should be rejected; for it is con- 
trary to the trend of teaching in the New Testament, and 
also is not the best interpretation of the Pauline passage 
involved. If, however, it be held that baptism may be 
such an energizing personal expression of the faith of a 
repentant man as naturally to prepare the way, or to 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 427 


render feasible actual regeneration by the Holy Ghost, 
I can see no forcible objection to the view. In other 
words, Christian baptism not only is a symbol of regenera- 
tion, but also may be a means of grace unto the event of 
regeneration. It does not practically follow, however, 
that a pastor should always be willing to baptize any 
repentant person. Indeed, as a rule, it is wiser, I think, 
to baptize men only after complete conversion. 

The Number of the Sacraments. The discussion of the 
term sacramentum, as to its history and meaning, is of 
some interest, but of no great worth in reaching a decision 
concerning the number of the Christian sacraments. 
The question is, mainly, one of pure obedience in carrying 
out our Lord’s intention as to what features are essential 
in the structure of his own church. He really organized 
his society about the preaching of the gospel and exactly 
two sacraments; and therefore exactly these two sacra- 
ments the church should have. It matters not how 
sacred and useful other rites may be, the Saviour him_ 
self did not place them in the organism of his church, and 
we have no right to enlarge upon his will. The name 
sacrament is not worth long contention, but baptism and 
the Lord’s Supper should together have a name which 
is not given to any other feature of the church service, 
or to any other rite in sacred ceremony. 

How far the new discussion of the significance of our 
Lord’s last supper with his disciples and the origin of the 
eucharist (by Harnack, Jiilicher, and others) may in- 
fluence Christian scholarship, it is now impossible to sur- 
mise ; but I do not expect to see any essential modification 
of the consensus of evangelical opinion by this extremely 
erratic discussion. For Christian men, it certainly would 
seem that Saint Paul’s statement to the Corinthians should 
settle the entire matter forever. In an article on the 
Lord’s Supper in the Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, 


428 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Alfred Plummer wisely writes as follows: “In what sense 
is the tradition represented by Mark and Matthew ‘the 
earliest’? That given by Saint Paul was written earlier, 
and is the earliest written record of any words of Christ. 
It had been previously communicated to the Corinthians. 
And Saint Paul had derived it direct from the Lord him- 
self (1 Cor. 11. 23). His words can mean no less. Had 
he merely been told by apostles he would have had no 
stronger claim to be heard than hundreds of other 
Christians. The silence of Matthew and Mark does not 
warrant us in contradicting such explicit testimony, 
which would be sufficient, even if it were unsupported, 
for the unvarying belief of the church from the earliest 
ages, that it was on the night in which he was betrayed 
that Christ instituted the eucharist, and gave the com- 
mand, ‘Continue to do this [pres. imp.] in remembrance 
of me.’ The proposal to place the institution of the 
eucharist as a permanent rite later than the last Supper 
is as unnecessary as the proposal to place it earlier.” 

The Formula of Christian Baptism. In 1 Cor. 6. 11 we 
read: “And such were some of you: but ye were washed, 
but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the spirit of our God.” 
Such references to Christ in connection with baptism, 
together with the fact that in the New Testament there 
is no mention of any person as being baptized in the 
name of the Trinity, has led many to believe that at first 
the trinitarian formula was not used in the Christian 
sacrament of baptism. This belief I cannot regard as 
well founded. These references to Christ are to be taken, 
I am inclined to think, as mere statements of the fact 
of Christian baptism, with the emphasis, in rhetorical 
manner, upon Jesus Christ—an emphasis which under 
the militant circumstances of the early church is just 
what one would naturally expect—and not as exact in- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 429 


dications of the formula used in the administration of 
the sacrament. There stand our Lord’s words, “bap- 
tizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost”’; and unless there is thoroughly 
convincing evidence to the contrary, we surely must sup- 
pose the apostolic church, so eager to do the will of their 
crucified and risen Lord, would carry out his last com- 
mand. 

Nor is the recognition of the Trinity in baptism an 
unimportant matter; for it is of the greatest concern that 
the Christian church fundamentally and perpetually rec- 
ognize the fact that, while Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, 
redemption is the plan and work of the entire Godhead. 
The baptismal command of our Lord, in taking leave of 
his disciples, is as if he had said to them, “I have now 
finished my work on earth, and provided for every man 
the possibility of salvation, but you are ever to remember 
that this free salvation is not a gift from me alone: but is 
from the whole of God, even the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost.” 

The Mode of Baptism. Exhaustively to consider the 
question of mode in Christian baptism is a physical im- 
possibility under the limited plan of this book. But, 
fortunately, the old-style discussion, which spent pages 
upon Barrigw and the classical history of the Greek 
pronouns, is no longer necessary. Christian archzology 
has changed all that. We now know what the early 
church actually did. All reliable scholarship is, I think, 
in agreement that the typical baptism in the apostolic 
church was in the mode of trine immersion. But from 
the very beginning, with the type ever at the front, there 
was in use a principle of liberty, a deep distinction being 
made between the essential act of baptism and the mere 
mode. The whole spirit of the situation is expressed in 
this passage from The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles: 


430 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


“ Having first said all these things, baptize into the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in 
living water [that is, fresh-running water]. But if thou 
have not living water, baptize in other water; and if thou 
canst not in cold, in warm. But if thou have not either, 
pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of 
Father and Son and Holy Spirit.’’ This principle of 
liberty has been used by different branches of the holy 
catholic church until the typical mode of baptism has been 
thrust into a practical banishment, and the exceptional 
mode (and the most exceptional mode, too) has become 
the type. As Dean Stanley said, “It is a striking exam- 
ple of the triumph of common sense and convenience over 
the bondage of form and custom.” 

From the standpoint of the Baptists, Dr. George Dana 
Boardman says, ‘The church has no more right to change 
a divine symbol than to change a divine command.” To 
this I would answer: If the church decides that she can 
better carry out a divine command by changing the form 
of a symbol which she believes is not a divine command, 
then she has not merely the right, but even the obligation, 
to make such a change. Indeed, this same principle of 
liberty has been used by our Baptist friends themselves, 
for they do not practice trine immersion. 

Dr. Boardman also suggests, as his zrenicon, that the 
Baptists shall give up their insistence on immersion as a 
qualification for communion, and that the non-Baptists 
shall return to the primitive mode of immersion. This 
suggestion is made in such a large Christian spirit that 
one can only wish it could be accepted and acted upon ; 
but it is out of range with the urgency of the situation 
which the Christian church is now facing. We are now 
fighting for nothing less than the whole supernatural pe- 
culiarity of Christianity, and sucha question as the mode of 
baptism is, for the time, of no great Christian concern. 


a 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 43i 


The denominations would much better stay just as they are 
until this serious battle is won—then there will be a new 
Christian perspective, and we all shall be able to look at 
our polemics in a new way, I believe. 

“A Communion of the Body of Christ.” For the sake 
of emphasis, I have kept for this place the deeper con- 
sideration of the Lord’s Supper. This sacrament is, as 
was indicated, a general means of grace; but it is also a 
most peculiar means of grace, for it furnishes to the 
communicant the possibility of an experience which is 
properly called mystical. The modern Christian man 
seems to be afraid of this term mystical, but itis the only 
term which can indicate some of the highest Christian 
experiences, those experiences which are so transcendent 
that, like the peace of God itself, they pass all understand- 
ing. Allow me, in this connection, to say that the teach- 
ing of Zwingli concerning the Lord’s Supper has been very 
strangely misunderstood. He taught something much 
more profound than “the memorial view,”’ for he taught 
that the body of Christ was mystically present. And, in 
the Methodist church, the mystical presence has also been 
taught. Dr. Latimer’s ‘dynamical presence,’ by which 
the communicants are “‘penetrated”’ so that Christ ‘“as- 
similates them to himself,’’ was Zwingli’s view stated in 
a most inspiring manner. I say it was Zwingli’s view; 
but I am not sure but Dr. Latimer intended to go further 
and to be almost as mystical as was John Calvin, who had 
an exceedingly profound and spiritual conception of the 
Lord’s Supper. Had Calvin’s influence only prevailed, 
the superficial Socinian conception of our Saviour’s table 
would never have made such headway as it has made, 
although it fits into the rationalistic tendency to cheapen. 
into clarity every feature of Christian experience. 

In 1 Corinthians, the tenth chapter, Saint Paul says: 
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a commun- 


432 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


ion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is 
it not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, 
who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all par- 
take of the one bread.” In all of Saint Paul’s epistles 
there is nothing more mystical than is this passage, and it 
is extremely difficult to get at his exact meaning. But 
let us earnestly try. The key to the passage is, I am 
sure, the one word xowwvia, translated “communion”’ 
in the English text quoted above. What does this word 
mean? That it does not mean a mere “ partaking of”’ is 
at once indicated by the fact that Saint Paul, in the last 
clause of the passage, expresses that meaning by another 
word (‘for we all partake of’’—weréyouev). Then, 
again, when we study xorvwvia, in its derivation, and as 
it is used in various connections, we discover that the 
pith of its meaning is in the idea of active fellowship. That 
is, a fellowship where both parties give as well as take. 
Now, is it possible to interpret the Lord’s Supper in terms 
of an active transcendent fellowship? I think it can be 
done in the following way: 

1. The bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, when 
used in a thoroughly Christian manner, become, under the 
operation of the Holy Spirit, the means of a transcendent 
realization of the death of Christ. That death not only 
occupies the communicant’s thought, it also dominates 
his feeling. It becomes absolutely real to him. It is 
reproduced in his consciousness. Spiritually, mystically, 
in overwhelming effect, it is to him as if the crucified 
Saviour, broken and bleeding, were actually there, in com- 
plete grasp by the senses. This is the mystical presence 
of our Lord’s body and blood. And it has been the 
actual experience of thousands of Christians who have 
fully prepared themselves for this sacrament. This mys- 
tical presence is the first stage of Saint Paul’s «ocvwvia. 

2. This realization of the death of our Lord is a means 


¢ 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 433 


(again under the operation of the Holy Spirit) of an active 
fellowship with Christ. The believer absolutely yields 
his person to that transcendent vision of his crucified 
Redeemer, and thus enters into communion with Christ 
himself. Christ takes him, penetrates him, and “‘assimi- 
lates him to himself.’’ Even the mystic’s phrase, ‘He 
becomes a part of the body of Christ,’ I do not deem 
beyond the fullness of the experience. This is the second 
stage of Saint Paul’s xovwria; and it is really only an 
intense emphasis in personal consciousness of that 
actual union with Christ which every truly Christian man 
obtains in his conversion. 

3. This active fellowship with Christ is the means 
(still under the operation of the Holy Spirit) of a further 
fellowship—a transcendent fellowship by the communi- 
cant with the Christian people who are about him at the 
Lord’s table; and to just the extent that they are in 
active fellowship with Christ. Thus, one man can gather 
up into his consciousness all sorts and conditions of men, 
and enter into their sorrows and their joys, and live large 
moments of supreme unselfishness. And thus it is possible 
for a Christian society, all partaking “of the one bread,” 
to become “‘one body.’’ This is the completion of Saint 
Paul’s xorvwvia, the communion of the body of Christ. 
And with a thought of the matter you will see that this 
communion is for the church but a predictive foretaste of 
the completed new race in Christ, as the members of that 
trace will live in glory. Forever will the death of Christ be 
absolutely real to them; forever will they have active 
fellowship with Christ; and forever will they have active 
fellowship with each other. 


XXXII. THE CHURCH MILITANT 


Havinc considered the church in its sacraments, in its 
organism, and in its essential relation to the kingdom of 
God, we are now prepared to look at the church militant, 
that is, the church actually at work in the great struggle 
to conquer the world. 

The Christian Preacher. It is with serious purpose that 
I place the Christian preacher in just this connection, for 
he has no significance save from the standpoint of the 
militant aim of the church. The Christian preacher is 
not an apostle. He has neither the authority nor the 
inspiration to make any fundamental addition to the 
word of God. Nor is the Christian preacher a priest, 
excepting in the sense in which every Christian man is a 
priest, ‘to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God 
through Jesus Christ.’’ The Christian preacher does not 
belong (as do the sacraments) to the organic structure 
of the church. There could be a real Christian church 
without any minister at all. He is not even necessary to 
preach the gospel. But he is necessary for economical 
and efficient service. He is an important feature in the 
economy of Christian conquest. A careful study of the 
Christian church in the New Testament will convince 
you that the difference between the clergy and the laity, 
of which high-church writers have made so much account, 
was merely a difference in practical service. To accom- 
plish anything, without perpetual waste, the early church | 
had to have machinery, had to have some sort of govern- 
ment, and had to have regular officers for this machinery 
and for this government. But these officers did not have 
any redemptional dignity in the church. Especially 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 435 


note the words of Bishop Lightfoot, who wrote as a 
master of the early history of the Christian church: “ But 
the priestly functions and privileges of the Christian 
people are never regarded as transferred or even delegated 
to these officers. They are called stewards or messengers 
of God, servants or ministers of the church, and the like; 
but the sacerdotal title is never once conferred upon them. 
The only priests under the gospel, designated as such in 
the New Testament, are the saints, the members of the 
Christian brotherhood.” 

This false, unchristian sacerdotal importance once 
entirely rejected, we are quickly and eagerly to place the 
largest emphasis upon the worth of the Christian preach- 
er to the church. I would go so far as to say that with- 
out him a living, efficient church is practically impossible. 
He is essential nct only to the surface economy of the 
church, in using its machinery to advantage—he is essential 
also, and even more, to the deeper spiritual economy, in ad- 
vising and developing and uniting and using in service the 
persons who make up the Christian community. In any 
church there are almost sure to be many kinds of people, 
perhaps no two of them in the same spiritual condition, 
perhaps no two of them with the same conception of the 
details of duty in Christian activity ; and there is pressing 
need of ‘‘a master in Israel,” who has the time and calling 
to study the entire situation from the standpoint of the 
ideal of a Christian church, and then has the definite pur- 
pose to lead the people, by preaching and by pastoral 
method, on toward that churchly ideal. To make out 
of many elements a living, efficient church; a church in 
which the sermon and the sacraments are ever quick with 
the Holy Ghost; a church with the atmospheric expecta- 
tion of conversions; a church where the tempted are en- 
vironed with victory; a church where the imperfect are 
made to see their larger need of Christ; a church where 


436 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


the peculiar consolations of God are given to the afflicted ; 
a church where Christian men begin even on earth to be 
a Christian brotherhood ; a church which constantly bears 
toward the whole world with sacrifice in its heart and 
conquest in its purpose—to make such a church, a church 
of the long major axis, that is the work of the Christian 
preacher. For such work in the church the Christian 
preacher needs at least four things in qualification, 
namely: First, a Christian experience so deep that it fills 
the consciousness with urgent reality; second, a compre- 
hensive knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; third, an un- 
failing grasp of all the peculiarity of the Christian faith 
as a system of redemptional doctrine; and, fourth, the 
capacity and the courage for spiritual leadership among 
men. Other qualifications the Christian preacher may 
have to advantage, especially for the oratorical phase of 
his service; but these four things mentioned he must have 
to build up a living and potent church of Christ. 

The Christian Church and the Home. From the begin- 
ning it has been a point in what may be called Christian 
strategy to gain vantage in the home. When Saint Paul 
teaches (see 1 Cor. 7. 14) that “the unbelieving husband 
is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanc- 
tified in the brother,”’ he is not thinking of personal holi- 
ness at all. No unbeliever can be holy by proxy. Buta — 
home itself is under the divine plan a little organism, and — 
to get into it even one point of Christian faith lifts the 
entire home into a new category for the church. The 
church can treat that home as its own spiritual property, — 
so to speak, and plan for it and even pray for it with a | 
sense of Christian ownership. The question as to the © 
worth of such Christian treatment of people who are not © 
actually Christians in their personal life, should be 
answered from the standpoint of the philosophy of human ~ 
influence. While every man’s decision must be at last — 


—_—- 


| 
; 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 437 


his own self-decision in his own freedom, yet we do in- 
fluence each other ; for we can be instrumental in bringing 
motive to immediate urgency. Thus there is a true sense 
in which one can be a means in another’s conversion. 

On the whole, this is the connection which I deem the 
most fitting for a statement of view concerning the bap- 
tism of infants. My view as to the baptism of infants has 
very naturally a close relation to my view of the salvation 
of infants in the intermediate state, for in both views there 
is involved their personal and moral condition. Already 
I have given the one view, and the other may be suc- 
cinctly stated thus: 

1. Inasmuch as infants have not yet come to the pos- 
sibility of personal volition, their baptism has not the 
meaning which Christian baptism has in the case of adult 
believers. That is, the baptism of an infant is not a token 
of personal intention, is not a symbol of an event of grace, 
and is not a means of grace. Of course, we can say that 
the parent or sponsor has personal intention and all that; 
and we can also say that the child is in a spiritual con- 
dition which is the equivalent of the regenerate state; 
and we can also say that later in life baptism will become 
to the child a means of grace. These things, or some of 
them, I have myself often said in the past; but they now 
seem to me to be mere verbal ingenuities made for the 
defense of a practice; and I deem it much fairer and 
much more wholesome to place the baptism of infants on 
a basis of its own. 

2. Inasmuch as infants are not personal sinners, they 
are innocent. It is, I believe, only of this simplicity in 
innocence that our Saviour was thinking when he said, 
“of such is the kingdom of heaven;’’ and his words are 
not to be taken in a hard and fast doctrinal way. 

3. These helpless and undeveloped and innocent chil- 
dren the Christian church has a right to claim as her own 


438 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


wards, to bring them up on the inside of the rich life of 
the holy catholic church. 

4. But the best way (and often the only feasible way) 
to do this is to do it through the home, which belongs to 
the church entirely or essentially. And so the church 
turns to the home and says: “If you will consecrate unto 
your Lord this child, and act for us until we can get at 
his personal life, we will baptize him into membership of 
the Redeemer’s church on earth.” 

5. And so the baptism of an infant is the most forcible 
recognition and utilization of the home on the part of the 
Christian church. 

6. If now you ask what infant baptism precisely stands 
for as a rite, the answer should, I believe, be this: It stands 
for the sacramental acceptance by the church of the con- 
secration unto Christ of a babe by a home. The church 
officially joins in with the home in dedicating the child 
unto the Redeemer, and does this by making the child 
a member of the holy catholic church under the principle 
of Christian claim. The two rites, infant baptism and 
adult baptism, are alike only in that both are forms of 
entrance into the church of Jesus Christ. 

The Church and the Nation. “The nation is to work 
in the realization on the earth of his kingdom who is the 
only and the eternal King. It becomes, then, no more — 
the kingdom of this world, but the kingdom of Him ~ 
whose reign is of eternal truth—the reign in which, in 
the realization of personality, there is the freedom of man. 
Its advance is only in his advent; its destination is toward 
him. Its new ages are the days of the coming of the Son 
of man. Its freedom is only in his redemptive strength. 
It is no more the life of the first man, of the earth earthy.” 

It is certainly fitting that I begin with these seerlike 
words quoted from the greatest tribute ever paid to the 
significance of national life; for it was this tribute, in 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 439 


Elisha Mulford’s The Nation, which, many years ago, 
started a line of thinking to culminate in my present 
conception of the profound relation between the church 
and the nation as two codrdinate features in the vast 
work of God for mankind. But to bring out the full 
conception, as it lies in my mind, I will refer again to the 
family. For these three, the family, the nation, and the 
church, belong to one divine plan, which through the 
centuries moves steadily toward the distant goal. This 
goal is that perfect brotherhood which is to be the ever- 
lasting kingdom of Christ, the inner circle of the kingdom 
of heaven, and the innermost circle of the whole kingdom 
of God. For this final brotherhood there are these three 
different ventures in social solidarity. They might prop- 
erly be called the three educational movements toward 
human brotherhood. First, there is the family, where, 
as in a primary school, we learn our first lesson in soli- 
darity. It is the first check on pure individualism. In 
a home, even in a very imperfect home, the total family 
must at times become the point of view. Not yet, per- 
haps, is there any real unselfishness, but there is an 
escape from the merely individual outlook, and a first 
exercise in social entanglement. Then, in a finer home, 
what chances there are to live in each other and for each 
other, and to form an almost perfect social organism. 
Next comes the nation; and how all the utilitarians fail to 
understand the grandeur of its meaning! They seem to 
think that a nation is a union of men to secure material 
prosperity. But a nation is a divine institution, like the 
family; and its purpose is to give another and larger 
check to pure individualism. Here again one may be 
selfish; but he must combine with many men and in a 
measure understand them and think of their interests 
and yield to their judgment. Thus there is increasing 
social interlacing all the time, And, in the most noble 


440 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


relation to the nation, in patriotism, there is a complete 
surrender of the individual to the good of the whole, for a 
patriot is a man who lives absolutely for his country in 
feeling and thought and deed. Now, do you not see 
what a preparation the family and the nation have made 
for the Christian church? They have introduced and 
emphasized the very principle of solidarity which the 
church seizes and applies to all mankind. The church 
cries out: ‘Yes, live for each other in the family; live in 
the entire length and breadth of national concern; but 
all mankind redeemed in Jesus Christ is the final family 
and the final nation; let us join together to express that 
largest social solidarity even in this world.” 

Holding such a view of the significance of the nation, 
we cannot tolerate the Romish idea that the nation is 
subordinate to the church. Nor can we receive the 
Erastian idea that the church is subordinate to the state. 
Nor are we satisfied with the idea that each is supreme 
in its own province, but the two provinces have no rela- 
tion to each other save as they cross lines in material 
things. The church and the nation are to be regarded as 
two allies, each working by its own method, to prepare 
the way for the kingdom of our Lord. Just as the moral 
process is a preparation for the full redemptional process, 


so the nation should be a real preparation for the work of © 


the church, Perhaps we would better say an indirect 
preparation, as what we mean is that the nation should 


aim to become a moral brotherhood, where every law and — 


every institution is for the benefit of all and under a moral 
ideal. This view I myself carry out into many details, 
some of these details involving action as a citizen; but 
all I wish to urge upon you is the general conception 
that the church is to look upon the nation, not as an 
accident brought about by men, but as a sacred agency 
of God in working out the plan of his final kingdom, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 441 


The Church and Socialism. Some years ago, in one of 
our great cities, I] heard a socialist try to answer the 
question, “ What must I do to be saved?”’ Substantially 
stated, his answer was this: ‘‘ The Christian idea that to 
be saved a man must be convicted of sin, have faith in 
Christ, and be converted, and lead a holy life, is altogether 
wrong. A man is not saved by what he himself does or 
allows God to do. A man is saved by society. Let 
society make a man’s environment right, and the man 
can’t help being right. Let society make a man’s en- 
vironment wrong, and the man can’t help being lost, that 
is, being bad. Our task, men, is to put about every 
brother man that which is true and beautiful and good.” 

Not every socialist would make or entirely sanction 
this statement as it stands; and yet the statement brings 
out sharply the main difference between socialism and 
Christianity, namely, one emphasizes environment while 
the other emphasizes personality. According to Chris- 
tianity, the individual person must do something to be 
saved; and all that is done for him (and Christianity 
believes that much must be done for him) is done in some 
under relation to his personal action. According to 
socialism, the man is a product very completely of the sit- 
uation in which he is placed. Indeed, I think it is not 
unfair to say that all unmodified socialism is materialistic 
either in fact or in tendency. 

But when we go back to those pregnant times which 
followed the French Revolution, when the workingman 
woke up to the astonishing fact that he had not been 
benefited by that revolution, and then follow the course 
of socialism through all its intensely interesting history, 
especially in Europe, we can discover, it seems to me, 
that socialism has a personal root in spite of all its anti- 
personal theory. The root of socialism is the personal 
hunger for brotherhood. The disappointment over the 


442 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


French Revolution was deeper than any question of 
material advantage. The man with money had shown 
in the uutcome that he did not care any more about the 
workingman than royalty had cared for him. And from 
that day until now the workingman has felt that no one 
has any concern in his real welfare. Surely the Christian 
church can never go over to the socialistic point of view 
to any such extent as would tend to weaken our insistence 
upon personality and personal salvation; but it does seem 
to me that the Christian church should make a much 
more serious study of socialism and the whole industrial 
situation; and should make a Christian contribution to 
the settlement of such questions as involve a principle of 
equity ; and should find some way to convince the work- 
ingman that the church of Jesus Christ is the very brother- 
hood which he needs. But it is not of much use to try 
to convince him, until we ourselves more nearly realize 
the Christian ideal, and actually are such a brotherhood. 

The Church and the City Problem. There is no place 
where, as a Christian man, I come quite so near to dread- 
ful discouragement as I do in one of the great cities of our 
Christian civilization. I say to myself, “We have 
preached the gospel here so long, and yet we have not con- 
quered this place!”” I have no heart thoroughly to enter 
into the matter, endeavoring to make you see all that I 
see. But there is one hopeful sign—a very hopeful sign, 
I think—and that is the new Christian attack upon “the 
slums.” I know very well how superficial, from a 
Christian standpoint, some of this work is. It is mere 
philanthropy. But not all of it is so; some of it is as 
profoundly Christian as any work done by the church 
anywhere. And the movement, as a movement, has 
taken the right method, namely, the method of a con- 
vincing brotherhood. Even superficial things are no 
waste, if in the end they make for brotherhood. The 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 443 


greatest thing you can do for a man is actually to lead 
him to Jesus Christ, but next to that greatest thing is it to 
love the man and make him believe that you are his 
brother. And often these two kinds of service are not 
far apart. : 

What is now needed is to lift this slum work out-of 
what may be called its sociological stage, and to make it 
truly Christian by placing it upon the conscience and 
heart of the entire church. The church should have 
much the same attitude toward the slum work that she 
has toward the foreign missionary work—an attitude of 
self-sacrifice, determination, conquest. The time shall 
come when the Christian church will consider the great 
cities points of such strategic rita that she will 

master them at any cost. 

The Church and Foreign Missions. In the very nature 
of the case, the supreme work to a thoroughly militant 
church is, and should be, in the field of foreign missions: 
for it is this field which most promptly utilizes the 
aggressive Christian spirit of world-wide conquest. The 
gospel is not for ourselves alone, but for the whole race. 
But there need be no antagonism between the work 
abroad and the work at home. Neither one should be 
exalted and cultivated at the expense of the other. The 
truth is that all work really done for Jesus Christ is one 
and the same thing, and must be done with that aggressive 
spirit which cries out, Every human being has been pur- 
chased by the death of our Lord, and we must reach them all 
with his gospel. 

I will state the true missionary motives, as I see them; 
but first I wish to quote a passage from Dr. D. D. Whedon. 
I have selected this passage from a number, because it ex- 
presses in a forcible way that view of the salvation of the 
heathen which has been current in the teaching of the 
Methodist church from John Wesley to John Miley: 


444 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


“Bold assertions in missionary speeches and sermons that 
all the world without the pale of Christendom is damned 
in mass never quicken the pulse of missionary zeal, On 
the contrary, they ever roll a cold reaction upon every 
feeling heart and every rational mind. Our better natures 
revolt, and, alas! a gush of skepticism is but too apt in 
consequence to rise in the public mind, especially where 
precise ideas in regard to the question ‘have not been 
formed and fixed. We had far better argue the mission- 
ary cause from the danger to our own salvation from that 
low standard of Christianity which does not subdue the 
world to the righteousness of faith; from the vast in- 
crease of the number saved through a universal gospel; 
and from the rich reward and unspeakable glory of win- 
ning every isle and continent to Christ, securing him the 
crown of our entire planet.” 

Our true motives for foreign missionary work are, as I 
_ see them, these: 

1. A desire to obey our Saviour’s command to go into 
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 

2. A desire to furnish to all men the present blessings 
of the gospel. 

3. A purpose to keep the church at home so filled with 
the militant temper of foreign missions as to render all her 
members unselfish and aggressive. 


4. A purpose to keep before the mind of the entire — 


church the size of the plan of redemption. 


5. A purpose to begin to realize the idea of a universal © 


human brotherhood in Jesus Christ. 


6. A purpose to hasten under all possible Christian — 


pressure the salvation of men, and thus to prepare them for 
the largest service and the largest destiny in the final 


kingdom of our Lord, 


EEE 


XXXTI. THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 


The Second Coming of Christ. This is the one subject 
in systematic theology which I would gladly avoid, were 
such a course possible in fairness, for the data are so 
dubious as to meaning in important places that I have 
been unable to reach such conclusions as amount to 
positive convictions. There are several discussions which 
I value very highly (notably Bishop Merrill's for its sanity 
and Dr. Terry’s for its scholarship) ; but I have not found 
a discussion which fathoms and harmonizes the whole of 
the teaching of the New Testament. The best I can do 
for you is to outline the case as it now stands in my 
mind: 

1. There are a number of Scripture passages often 
marshaled in this connection which have no bearing what- 
ever upon the question in dispute. For they refer to the 
ordinary Christian event of the coming of Christ into 
the human heart by means of the Holy Ghost. 

2. There are other Scripture passages where the ref- 
erence is (probably) to the appearance of Jesus to his dis- 
ciples immediately after his resurrection. Such a pas- 
sage is that where our Saviour says, “ A little while, and ye 
behold me no more; and again a little while, and ye shall 
see me”’ (Saint John 16. 16). 

3. There is one passage which may be quite reasonably 
explained as a special coming of Christ to meet his dis- 
ciples, each one at his death. I mean the passage in the 
gospel of John (14. 3) where Jesus says, “‘ And if I go and 
prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive 
you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” 

4. The effort to explain such passages as that of Saint 


440 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Matt. 26. 64 as the coming of our Lord in an event of 
judgment having no association with his personal advent, 
seems to me to be entirely unconvincing. 

5. I find it impossible to get all the teaching of the 
synoptic gospels into one consistent view; but, on the 
whole, this seems to be the teaching: At the end of the 
gospel dispensation (‘‘ post-millennium”’) Jesus Christ will 
return to this world in person, visible and glorious, to 
raise the dead; to judge all men; to punish sinners and 
reward saints; and to complete the formation and place- 
ment of his everlasting kingdom. And, further, this 
synoptic teaching is entitled to the theological right of 
way, for it is not only exceedingly emphatic but also 
bound up with important Christian doctrines. 

6. This brings us to what has been called “the passage 
of torment,’’ in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. 
All I can say personally about this passage is that all the 
attempts to fit it into the synoptic conception of our 
Lord’s second coming seem to me to be forced and there- 
fore inconclusive. But the fairest thing for me to do is 
to place two great specialists in biblical theology over 
against each other. Professor Salmond says: “ However 
the circumstance is to be accounted for, and however it is 
to be related to the general teaching of the New Testa- 
ment, it must be admitted that this remarkable para- 
graph in John’s Apocalypse speaks of a real millennial 
reign of Christ on earth together with certain of his saints, 
which comes in between a first resurrection and the final 
judgment.” Professor Terry, in commenting upon verses 
7-10, says: ‘“‘It is a great symbolic picture, and its one 
great teaching is clear beyond the possibility of doubt or — 
misunderstanding, namely, that Satan and his forces must 
all ultimately perish. This is written for the comfort 
and confidence of the saints. But that final victory is in 
the far future, at the close of the Messianic age, and it is 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 447 


here simply outlined in apocalyptic symbols. Any pre- 
sumption, therefore, of determining specific events of 
the future from this grand symbolism must be regarded 
as in the nature of the case a species of worthless and 
misleading speculation.” 

The New Race in Full Fact. This triumph of the 
church at the second coming of Christ is not the Christian 
culmination, but simply a final instrumental stroke unto 
that culmination. Christian history culminates only in 
the full fact of the new race in Jesus Christ. In different 
places and at different angles of vision, I have tried 
gradually to prepare your minds and hearts for this sub- 
lime racial culmination; but now that we are actually fac- 
ing the culmination there are several things which should 
be brought out with the greatest possible stress. The 
first of these points for extreme emphasis is that in this 
new race there is guaranteed the immortality of the person. 
This new race is, indeed, conceivable only in terms of 
personality. The very organism is personal. The mem- 
bers are bound together as persons. The very glory of 
their wonderful social life is that all the interchange of 
blessing, all the interlacing in self-sacrifice, is self-con- 
scious. Not only do they live for each other and in each 
other, but they want to. There is a sense in which the 
individual at last is an expressive feature of the divine 
life, but this does not come about by the pantheistic 
method, it comes about by a personal union with God. 
In all his earthly probation no saint was ever so intensely 
personal, so intensely self-conscious, so intensely self- 
decisive, as he is now in the new race. His whole being 
is filled with the realization of where he is and what he is 
and what he is doing for other men and what they are 
doing for him. He loses his life ethically only to find it 
personally. 

If this conception of personal immortality in the new 


448 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


race is thoroughly before you, I will ask you to throw it 
into sharp contrast with Herbert Spencer’s benumbing 
view of the outcome of human life. In his last book Mr. 
Spencer wrote: “ And then the consciousness itself—what 
is it during the time that it continues? And what be- 
comes of it when it ends? We can only infer that it is a 
specialized and individualized form of that Infinite and 
Eternal Energy which transcends both our knowledge 
and our imagination; and that at death its elements lapse 
into the Infinite and Eternal Energy whence they were 
derived.” 

Another point which should receive extreme emphasis is 
that the social intercourse is ethically achieved. It is pre- 
cisely at this point that our modern imagination has most 
widely gone astray. We cannot imagine what the life 
of the redeemed is like without sentimentalizing the scene 
out of its pure ethical quality. To illustrate what I mean 
take John Milton’s famous lines: 

“There entertain him all the saints above 
In solemn troops and sweet societies, 
That sing, and singing in their glory move, 

And wipe the tears forever from his eyes.” 
Here we have a most beautiful social scene surely, but 
it is too soft, too empty of moral quality, to represent the 
final life of our Lord’s people. If you do not feel the force 
of my criticism, read the last part of the seventh chapter of 
the book of the Revelation, the very passage which prob- 
ably suggested to Milton his lines. Saint John’s picture 
is strongly ethical, as every truly Christian thing always 
is. In the new race, the whole motive of action is moral 
love. The saint serves another saint not because he loves 
him, but because he morally loves him. That is, the love 
itself is a flaming passion for righteousness. And the 
peculiarity of the social enlargement of the one man is that 
st is his moral ideal itself which more and more deeply 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 449 


drives him into the lives of the saints about him, until he 
is in living intercourse with every person of the new race. 
And so the size of the social experience of any one saint is 
the size of his moral experience as well as the size of the 
entire race. Nor does this mean a dead level in expe- 
rience, for every person is rigidly himself with his own 
native and acquired individuality, which was completely 
personalized in the intermediate state; and the vast 
social life is caught up in thousands of points of indi- 
vidual peculiarity in self-consciousness. 

As to the question of special individual friendships 
within the new race, we need to speak carefully. But our 
Saviour’s relation to Saint John furnishes a hint; and 
our principle of human complement or supplement 
furnishes another hint; and our philosophy of probation 
furnishes yet another hint. Putting together all there 
is of such suggestion, I have reached this speculation: 
The social life of the new race is to be a large network of 
special friendships. Some of these friendships begin in 
this life. Perhaps a mother gradually transfigures her 
natural relation to her child into a moral fellowship 
which can go on forever because it is worthy of the 
eternal life. Perhaps a pastor becomes so much to a 
young man that their spiritual intercourse can never 
wear out. Indeed, I dare to think that every right 
natural relation is an invitation, an opportunity, for an 
eternal transaction; that, inside of a man’s supreme 
probation, are many subordinate probations, where the 
voice of the situation is: “ Will you let this thing fly away 
with time? or will you pack it full of everlasting riches?”’ 
Other special friendships may be rapturous discoveries 
of the eternal life. I like to dream of two men doing 
their work here faithfully, but with lonely person and 
starving heart, suddenly meeting on some highway of 
heaven, and finding out their mutual adaptation for 


450 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


intimate friendship, and exclaiming in one celestial 
explosion, “I have found you at last!” But these 
special friendships do not weaken the service and the joy 
of the larger social life of the whole race; rather do they 
strengthen it. Just as now and then we see a Christian 
home where every secret gladness in the home circle 
inspires every member of it into a more generous concern 
for all the town, all the nation, all the world—so all the 
little points of special heavenly joy shall only help the 
whole race to live and rejoice in one another. 

The main point, however, for extreme emphasis is that 
the dominating center of all this morally achieved social life 
is F¥esus Christ our Redeemer. Already I have urged upon 
you in several ways this supreme position of Christ in 
the everlasting racial and social organism of the redeemed ; 
but now let us dwell upon it with lingering love. When 
I try to put into a sufficient symbol our Saviour’s final 
relation to his own people, I find nothing quite so grandly 


suggestive as Dante’s figure of the many lamps all — 


enkindled by the one blazing sun: 


‘“‘In bright preéminence so saw I there 
O’er million lamps a sun, from whom all drew 
Their radiance.” 


Yes, that is it, all the countless little lamps of friend- | 


ship throughout the society of the new race catch their 


flame from the Lord Jesus Christ! But just what do we ~ 


mean by this figure here? We mean that the very 


motive for all this friendship, the motive which urges . 
the saint out into social interlacing is his love for Jesus — 


Christ. It is because the saint loves Christ supremely — 
that he cau love this or that man specially, and then give © 


himself to all the redeemed. The saint's capacity for holy 
friendship is actually made by his love for his Lord. 
But—you are thinking it—did I not say that in the new 


ee 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 451 


race the whole motive of action is moral love? I cer- 
tainly did say that ; but the redeemed man’s love is moral, 
not because he has gone back to Mount Sinai, or because 
he is seeking to be conscientious; but simply because he 
loves Jesus Christ with all his soul. It is Christ who 
creates the ethical passion and makes righteousness to 
the glorified an element of their spontaneous life. Let 
me say, then, that for the new race Jesus Christ amounts 
to the whole significance of eternity. Take him away, 
and everything would lose its attraction, and immor- 
tality itself would not be worth the having. It is only 
your Christian longing to be with Him “whom not hav- 
ing seen ye love”—it is only that boundless gratitude 
which Christ gives you in the supernatural experience 
of salvation—it is only that foretaste of glory which you 
now have in communion with your Lord—brethren, 
brethren, it is not the endless years but our blessed 
Redeemer that draws us on toward the eternal scene! 

But are there not purely natural desires for the life 
beyond the grave? Yes, there are. Several such nat- 
ural desires belong to the very nature of personality 
itself. One of these is a normal person’s quick interest 
in self-assertion. In the clear vision of self-consciousness 
no normal person can tolerate the thought of ceasing to 
exist. He wants to assert himself and then to keep at it. 
He is bound to live forever. He wills at immortality as 
immediately as ten thousand creatures in the air will 
themselves into continued and swifter flight. Now they 
are flying they like to keep on flying. 

Then, there is the motive of personal curiosity. There 
are times when, however much we may wish to remain 
here, we become impatient to find out what the eternal 
life is. In this case the further world is attractive to us 
not so much because it is a continuation of existence as 
because it is an unexplored realm. 


452 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


“What a strange moment will that be 
My soul, how full of curiosity, 

When winged and ready for thy eternal flight 

- On the utmost edges of thy tottering clay, 

Hovering and wishing longer stay, 

Thou shalt advance and have eternity in sight! 
When just about to try that unknown sea, 
What a strange moment will that be!” 


- In this way we could go on, and out of our personal 
life, and out of our personal relations, especially those 
relations which yield our finest earthly friendships, we 
could bring into position quite a convincing series of 
natural desires to live beyond bodily death. And often 
this series is brought into striking position, in book or 
sermon, and is allowed to stand in place alone, as if there 
were no other side to the matter. But there is another 
side, the individual side. The man as an individual is 
not yet altogether personal. Many times he is in a state 
of consciousness far below self-consciousness. Many 
times he is but an individual dimly remembering his 
higher personal experiences. And many times he is an 
individual altogether exhausted by the intense personal 
and moral conflict out of which he has dropped. Now, | 
this individual man, this man only partly personalized 
but realizing in long, dreary reaction all the weariness 
and sense of failure following the personal battle—this — 
tired individual, I say, does not want to live forever. Grant — 
him no supernatural reénforcement, no memory of asso-— 
ciation with God, no word from God, no habit of prayer, 
no church ministry, no Christian fellowship; and, in his 
weariness, he would be quite inclined to vote for annihila-_ 
tion. Well does he understand the fascination which cer- . 
tain forms of pantheism have for men; for he himself 
craves rest in the absolute extinction of all consciousness, — 
he himself longs to fall back into the silent, meaningless" 
abyss, even as a restless, storm-driven, foam-crested 


7 


. 


a 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 453 


wave becomes quiet at last as it falls back into the deeps 
of the sea. 

We are told that the men of our day are losing their 
interest in the question of immortality, ‘‘that the tide of 
human interest is steadily ebbing away from the shores of 
another life.”” This waning concern is just what we should 
expect as a consequence of the perpetual exploitation of 
the individual at the expense of the person, which has 
taken place since the publication of Charles Darwin’s 
epoch-making book. In natural science, in psychology, 
in ethics, and even in theology there have not been 
(taking the four together) more than ten writers of in- 
fluence who have given encouragement for the serious 
cultivation of a personal life and a keen sense of moral 
responsibility. And over against this, our dire poverty, 
Mr. Spencer has had hundreds of able helpers in making 
men believe that personal experience itself is an auto- 
matic deception. Has there been anything quite so 
pathetic and quite so enervating in the entire history of 
human opinion? I think not. We must—we must find 
some way to turn this tide, and to bring into general 
appreciation the majestic meaning of man’s personality, 
and with that the tremendous responsibility of man’s 
moral life. Such appreciation will tend to banish the 
present lethargy of the individual and so to recreate an 
interest in immortality. 

But I should say much more. The natural personal 
desires for eternal life, even when they are at their best, 
are not capable of long resistance under strong attack. 
And in an experience of profound sorrow they are almost 
certain to fail. We need the Christian hope, and we need 
this hope in its apostolic purity. An urgent thing to do 
is to lead the church of our Lord out of all feeble senti- 
mentalities concerning the life beyond. Let us stamp out 
every trace of spiritism. Our blessed dead should be so 


454 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


related to Jesus Christ that our thoughts of them are but 
tender repetitions of our thoughts of him. Our Lord 
must be in all and over all. Let us not have any longing 
for anything which can exist outside of him. Let us not 
only in our thinking and in our imagination build the 
entire company of the redeemed into a solid race of which 
Christ is center and source, but also find our interest in 
eternity itself, as Saint Paul did, through our desire to be 
forever with our Lord and those who love him supremely. 
Such an interest in eternity will resist any attack; will 
penetrate every affliction with consolation; will inspirit | 
the individual even in his lowest mood ; and will make the — 
Christian fearless in life or death. While so many are — 
seeking a “scientific demonstration of immortality,” I 
would urge the whole church to seek that kind of cer- 
tainty which comes only through an apostolic passion for 
Jesus Christ. 


THE ENTIRE SWEEP OF THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION 


Now that in our thinking the church of our Lord is 
made glorious by becoming the new race in full fact, we 
are ready to place together all the points of Christian at- 
tainment, and thus to have before us the entire sweep of 
the plan of redemption. 

1. Starting with free personality and the moral nature 
of man, the plan first secures, under the supernatural 
work of the Holy Spirit, the loyal person. This loyalty to» 
Christ makes a positive connection between the old moral 
ideal and all the new possibilities in Christ. That is, by 
becoming a Christian no truly moral thing is thrown 
away. 

2. The compound motive of loyalty is turned into the 
simple motive of moral love, and thus is secured the holy 
person. By this method a perfect moral organization is 
obtained, by which I mean that in self-consciousness there — 











THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 455 


is harmony under the new moral ideal. A holy Christian 
does not violate the standard given by his moral judg- 
ment. 

3. In the intermediate state the total individuality is 
personalized. And as the person is already holy the 
result is the holy personal individual. 

4. By means of the resurrection this perfect personal 
individual obtains a glorified body, which is a perfect in- 
strument of expression; and the result now is the perfect 
man, body and personal soul, capable of an objective life 
equal to his subjective life. This is the completed new 
man in Christ. 

5. Here we make an important turn to obtain the final 
Christian point of view. The perfect man is not to exist 
alone. The glorified body is not furnished merely to 
finish out manhood, it is furnished for actual social life. 
Nor is social life the idea to stop at. The glorified body 
is a racial body. It is made and given precisely to con- 
nect this complete man, having all this social possibility, 
with the whole race of redeemed men. Thus the plan of 
salvation sweeps on and on until it provides a great racial 
outcome for every man saved by means of our Lord’s 
death. 

Having now this more comprehensive racial point of 
view, let us for an inspiring moment look back and 
quickly trace the preparatory stages for the racial consum- 
mation. These preparatory stages are five, and may be 
outlined as follows: 

First, the free moral person becomes the person loyal 
to Jesus Christ. 

Second, the loyal person becomes the holy person, loving 
his Lord supremely. 

Third, in all the Christian life, from its beginning on to 
death, there is provision for a probational training in 
brotherhood. This training is by means of the holy 


456 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


catholic church, which, if not the new race in full fact, 
is the new race in tentative expression. 

Fourth, in the intermediate state the holy person, | 
alone with his Saviour, is utterly made ready for all the 
fellowship and service of the ultimate brotherhood in | 
Christ. The intermediate state is the university, where © 
the education for eternal brotherhood is completed. And — 
our Master is the whole Faculty! | 

Fifth, by means of the glorified body of the resurrection — 
this completed saint actually enters into the vast com- _ 
munity of the redeemed, not only a perfect man, but also — 
a perfect brother, capable of perfect fellowship and service. — 
This vast community of perfect brothers, all saved by 
Jesus Christ, all completed by Jesus Christ, all organized | 
by Jesus Christ, all living in union with Jesus Christ, is © 
his race in full fact. 

Is there possible in all human thinking a more sublime 
conception of destiny than this plan of redemption when 
taken in its entire sweep? And if we add the stupendous 
price paid for its possibility, what shall we say? 


Ee 
ee 
ee 





The idea of the endless conscious suffering of the wicked is the most 
unwelcome thought ever suggested tomy mind. My whole soul revolts 
against it. There is no sacrifice I would not willingly make to get rid 
of it. It is the horror of all horrors. Such is the attitude of my 
mind to the question. But against my wish, and all the feelings of my 
soul, I am constrained to believe that God sees it differently, and with 

infinitely greater capacity to know what is best and proper, and with 
infinitely greater love and tenderness than any of his holiest children 
can claim, has incorporated the dreadful fact of permanent conscious 
suffering as a possibility in his plan.—Randolph S. Foster, Beyond the 
Grave, pp. 130, 131. 





XXXIV. MEN OUTSIDE THE NEW RACE 


Rejected Views. The theory of second probation I have 
already rejected in our study of the intermediate state; 
and I am obliged also to reject three additional views 
concerning those who die in a personal attitude of moral 
antagonism to righteousness. The first of these views is 
the restoration of the wicked by a coercive process. The 
essence of this view was popularly expressed by this 
remark: “If God desire to save men and cannot, he is not 
God.” After all I have said in regard to the moral person 
and God’s dealing with him, it surely is unnecessary to 
uncover the crude, false thinking which underlies this 
remark, or to show why we should instantly reject the 
idea of any sort of coerced sainthood. The second view 
may be fairly called the agnostic view. For it amounts 
to saying that we cannot come to any positive conclusion, 
and the whole matter would better be left in the vague. 
When handled with apparent piety and unapparent 
ingenuity this view seems to be the high-water mark of 
Christian reserve; but it is practically a most dangerous 
hesitation, for it serves to encourage those germinal 
feelings which soon grow into some phase of universalism. 
Indeed, I have usually found that in theology an agnostic 
position is a wayside inn where men rest a bit on their 
way to extreme liberalism. The third view is the annt- 
hilation of the wicked. This view is taught in several 
different ways and in several different relations to the 
basal philosophy; but its most powerful setting forth is 
in the theory of “conditional immortality” as held by 
that growing group of men represented by Edward White. 
That White’s book, Life in Christ, is one of the real books 


460 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


of modern times, actually throbbing with an earnest 
message to men, I am even eager to admit. But I cannot 
accept the message. There is much temptation to take 
up the exegesis, but I will leave that work to the biblical 
scholars. My own main objections to the theory of 
annihilation, however it may be grounded and elaborated, 
are just two: First, it is entirely lacking in that ethical 
quality which belongs to every truly Christian doctrine. 
Wherever we land in our theories, we simply should not, 
will not, land in a bog of moral mitigation. And to me 
this view is worse than mitigation. Preach annihilation 
to a sinner, and you preach with his own inclination. In 
his highest personal state the sinner would dread an- 
nihilation, but in his more usual individual state he would 
crave it, The statement will be contradicted by many, 
but I am very sure that this theory of annihilation is even 
less ethical than is the theory of second probation. Pro- 
claimed generally in the church, it would rot the moral 
fiber of the message of the gospel. Second, the theory of 
annihilation is impossible in theodicy. That God in his 
omniscience would create men only to throw them away 
at last, a useless waste, ‘‘as rubbish in the void,’’ is to me 
inconceivable from any standpoint possible in theodicy. 
The harsh theory of an eternity of torture in physical 
flame was surely hard enough to deal with in theodicy. 
But one could discover at least the possibility of a moral 
value in the torture. For it was barely conceivable that 
the structure of the final universe required an endless 
objective record of the sinner’s dreadful rejection of God’s 
mercy. Annihilation, though, I cannot relate to theodicy 
in any way whatever. Once I tried to see if it might not 
be morally utilized through the memory of the saints in 
their eternal life, but soon in earnest thinking the point 
became finical and impossible. 

A Purely Personal Problem. It may be that constantly 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 461 


I should have reminded you of the limited claim behind 
all my theological discussion. For pedagogical reasons 
the method of presentation changes here and there; and 
now and then the tone becomes almost one of authority ; 
but all the time there is taking place only one thing, 
namely, a personal testimony as to what is essential in 
theology to enable a man to see the Christian faith as a 
redemptional total. I claim merely that to apprehend the 
Christian system consistently I myself need thus and thus 
to interpret and relate Christian doctrines. Now, in our 
consideration of the future condition of the wicked, there 
are very peculiar and important reasons why I should ask 
you to keep my moderate claim clearly in mind. 

My own personal problem, then, I will give you frankly 
and exactly. I have no problem whatever as to the 
general content of the Christian doctrine. Not one word 
have I to say in depreciation of the sincerity and ability 
of such men as John Frederick Denison Maurice. I 
simply say that for me the New Testament teaches per- 
sistently the endless punishment of all men who die in 
personal hostility to righteousness. The case does not 
rest with the meaning of the one word aidvoc—whether 
it is a quantitative or a qualitative word. I think that 
it is (precisely like our own word eternal) sometimes 
quantitative and sometimes qualitative, and sometimes 
both at one stroke; and so its meaning in any given place 
is to be determined by the context, or by using larger 
exegetical principles. But I have no great interest in 
the discussion of this word. No Christian doctrine 
depends upon the significance of a word; or even upon the 
significance of an isolated text. Every Christian doctrine 
eventuates! It is a whole trend of Scripture come to 
necessary issue. When we further ask whether this end- 
less punishment is a conscious punishment or not, my 
answer is this: To protect the tremendous moral urgency 


462 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


of the New Testament, that awful voice of warning, I 
require the feature of consciousness just as much as I 
require the feature of endlessness. The content of the 
doctrine, as I must hold it, is this: For all the wicked who 
die obdurate there will be a divine punishment which will 
be realized by them consciously and everlastingly. 

My problem, the problem which for many years has 
been not only in my mind, but also on my heart, is to 
harmonize this awful doctrine of eternal punishment with 
our complete Christian conception of God. In other 
words, my problem is to place the doctrine in a Christian 
theodicy. 

The Problem Met. With diffidence, because I well 
know that many Christian ideas and feelings I have not 
utilized, I will briefly indicate in what way it has been 
necessary for me to meet the problem. And when I say 
“necessary for me to meet the problem” I mean both 
that I had to meet the problem, and that I had to meet 
it in this precise manner. Some of the safest thinkers 
we have in the Christian church do not believe that it is 
wise to try to push an inch further than the content of 
the New Testament doctrine. I fully appreciate their 
discretion; but I must see a doctrine touch some possi- 
bility in theodicy or I cannot rest. I cannot carry about 
in my Christian life a bundle of mysteries which seem to 
hide an antagonism in doctrine. And I speak out only 
to help men who are constituted as I am myself. No, 
there is yet another motive for utterance; for I am hoping 
sooner or later to get some important indications at this 
difficult point from the range of Christian consciousness 
about me. 

In speculation I have met my problem in the following 
way: 

1. Our stopping place, the point beyond which theodicy ~ 
does not require us to go, is the idea that, under the law 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 463 


of expression, there is to be a vast final universe, which 
shall absolutely manifest the holiness of God as cul- 
minating in moral love. That is, the final arrangement 
of all persons and all things must plainly evince the facts 
that the structural finality in God is holiness, that his 
personal relation to this holiness is one of intense and 
unyielding concern, and that his infinite love itself is but 
the supreme phase of this moral concern. 

2. In this final universe there are to be, just as really 
as there are in this world, two kinds of service—a vol- 
untary service given by the creature in freedom, and an 
involuntary service yielded by the creature under com- 
pulsion. 

3. Like the angels themselves, all men are created for 
this final universe. In the plan of their destiny the 
divinely fixed fact is that they must live forever, that 
they must, whether or no, become a part of the final 
universe, and make an endless contribution in service. 
Are you holding this crucial thought? Within God’s ideal, 
and having no item contingent upon personal freedom, 
he has an inner plan, a primary teleology, which will be 
accomplished entire ; and all men are as fast in this inner 
plan as the Stanser Horn is fast inthe Alps. In our usual 
thinking about a man we ignore this primary design; we 
quietly assume that when God created the man his only 
aim was to obtain a saint. And then when the man in 
his personal freedom refuses to become a saint the result 
appears to us to be a complete defeat of the Creator. 
Now, I insist that in creation the idea of service is more 
fundamental than the idea of a certain kind of service. 
The saint may be; the servant must be. God will have 
service—there can be no failure here; the final universe 
shall be a universe of service; and every man is made 
primarily to take a task in the eternities and endlessly 
to serve the great ends of holiness. 


464 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


4. Although a man is created primarily for the final 
universe, and must render an endless service im the ~ 
evincement of holiness, yet he is created a free moral 
person, and in his freedom he can and must decide the 
manner of his destiny. He can and must decide whether 
he will render his eternal service under compulsion, as a 
slave is driven to a burden; or in liberty and love, as a 
saint does the will of his Lord. The significance of this 
earthly probation lies not in that it determines whether 
a man is to have an eternal existence or not, but only in 
that it determines in which of the two possible categories 
of eternal service he is to exist. 

5. Before I closely consider this conception of invol- 
untary service I wish to prepare our hearts for the point 
by making a serious protest against the sweeping affirma- 
tion that a final universe, with lost men in it, is not only 
an idea obnoxious to Christian sentiment, but also an 
idea inconceivable in a Christian theodicy. For my own 
sake, to get my own point of departure, let me begin 
with the creation of men. What does their creation mean 
to God under the law of expression? In the creation of 
men God expresses more than his purpose to have service, 
he expresses his desire to have voluntary service. When- 
ever a man is born there is the manifestation of a thing 
deep in God, his ideal, his personal longing, so to speak. 
In the very make-up of a man (or any moral person, for 
that matter) there is trace of what we may dare to call 
the divine finality in ambition. Every time a new man 
comes into being fresh from God’s will the event cries out, — 
“God will have this particular man added to his final — 
universe—and—God’s desire, God’s ideal, God’s ambition ~ 
is to have this man there as a free, loving, rejoicing, — 
saint.” Thus, I hold that, whatever the outcome, what- — 
ever the man may do or become, the bare creation of him 
as a free moral person manifests the divine ideal and so 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 465 


must have for God the beginning of worth under the law 
of expression. I do not say or intimate that such initial 
worth taken alone could become the motive for creation; 
but I urge the reality of the worth, nevertheless. I wish 
ever to begin with this emphasis upon the law of expres- 
sion because it helps me to strike out a course of thinking 
free from that humanitarian utilitarianism which has 
poisoned so much of our theology. We all are inclined 
to believe (and sure to feel) that the ultimate test of any 
view is in its answer to this question: How much pleasure 
and profit will man get? We never think of God. 
Dropping those intermediate connections which are not 
essential to our discussion, let us now try to look at the 
final universe from God’s point of view. His final 
universe certainly will not be what he most profoundly 
wanted, it will not be his ideal realized. God wanted a 
final universe comprehending every moral person created ; 
and all these created persons in a voluntary service of holy 
purport; and all this eternal service resplendent and en- 
raptured with the holy vision of God. In such an ideal 
universe the involuntary service, all the tasks of com- 
pulsion as far as such tasks might be needful, would not 
be done by vitiated persons, but rather by automatic 
creatures, even as coercive service is furnished in this 
world by beast and bird. But God saw his ideal plan in 
wreck through the very freedom absolutely necessary to 
its actualization. There 1s no “felix culpa’! Sin has 
destroyed the possibility of our finest eternity. The 
final universe will be nothing but a second best, a drop 
down from the wish, an ideal mangled. Sin will not be 
triumphant, but sin has infringed the dream, has placed 
the glory of the outcome in everlasting check. You are 
not quite ready to say so; but there is a minor voice which 
can be heard in spite of our rejoicing ; a voice which sounds 
louder as the soul deepens in moral love for God and 


466 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


men; a voice which silences at last all our easy, un- 
ethical optimisms; a voice which will speak with a tender 
but moral emphasis through all the ages upon ages of 
human destiny: ‘‘ This is not the universe God wanted!” 
But, although the final universe will not be all God 
wanted, it will tell all he wanted. As an everlasting 
cosmic utterance it will be altogether sufficient. The 
mitigating minds in theodicy seem to think that God in 
his transcendent regard for his creatures has no inherent 
rights, that all he is and all he needs should be sacrificed 
regardless. Any speech which I am able to command is 
too clumsy for the task, the very word rights is entirely 
inadequate; but the false notion ought to be contradicted 
at once in some way, and so I will assert that God himself 
has rights. He has the right to come fairly out into cosmic 
fact. He has the right to manifest the whole range of his 
holy life. He has the right to fasten into the eternities 


his changeless hatred of sin. He has the right to have a ~ 
final universe which shall forever declare the entirety of — 


meaning in his moral love for men; that it was moral love; 


that it was moral love. God loved these lost men pre-— 


cisely as he loved those who are now his saints. He ~ 


made them moral persons. He gave them freedom. 


He provided moral pressure in conscience. He gave 
them motive after motive toward righteousness. He 


sent his only Son to render possible their redemption. 
Their sin entered into Christ’s infinite agony. God 
watched their wandering steps with his sleepless provi- 
dence. Their faintest moral effort he met with instant 
help. Again and again, and yet again, he poured the 
power of the Holy Spirit upon their withering moral 
desire—yes, until there was no moral desire. To save 
these lost men God the Omnipotent spent all the resources 
of the Triune Godhead; and the final universe should say 
so—and it will say so! 


ee 





| 
: 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 467 


6. More closely now, what do we mean by this in- 
voluntary service? By using the word involuntary I do 
not intend to teach or suggest that lost men are crushed 
into mere ‘“‘thinghood.’’ They are, I believe, below the 
possibility of any moral action, or moral concern. Their 
conception of right and wrong is an intellection empty of 
all feeling. And they are, I think, also below the pos- 
sibility of any real self-decision. They are creatures of 
fear. They are like persons in this life when personality 
is entirely overwhelmed by the bare sense of what we 
call “physical fear.’’ The lost are in consciousness 
totally occupied, as far as they feel the urgency of motive, 
with a fear which has in it not one throb of moral meaning. 
Their personal rebellion is all gone, and they obey God 
swiftly; but they obey him not because they eagerly 
recognize a moral obligation in his command, they obey 
merely because they are afraid. As a frightened creature 
cowers at the rush and thunder of an avalanche, so the 
lost are afraid of God. Incapable of the vision of God, 
incapable of the love of God, incapable of any moral regard 
for God—and yet doing God’s behest under the slavery 
of torturing fear—that is the eternal punishment; that is 
the worm which “ dieth not ”’; that is the fire which is ‘‘ not 
quenched.”’ And do you not see that this awful condition 
is not an arbitrary infliction, but a punishment intrinsic 
to the nature of sin? God does not build an environment 
on purpose to torture the wicked. Hell (like heaven) is 
in the Bible made real to us by an objective scene, and 
those who need it may keep the scene; but the moral 
message is much more terrible than the superficial scene. 
The punishment of hell is the suffering of a man become 
entirely and eternally inorganic. The man was made 
to fear God; but the original fear had in it great moral 
possibility, possibility sweeping on, under the plan of 
redemption, even into the lofty rapture of moral love. 


468 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


The obdurate sinner, though, in his freedom, has emptied 
all moral quality out of his fear; and now the naked terror, 
beating alone in consciousness, drives him on forever. 

My thought is that in the final universe there is a 
service of fear over against the service of love. Even 
this obedience of fear is obedience, and can be so placed 
and so used that God’s holiness entire is expressed as it 
could not be expressed by the annihilation of the wicked ; 
yes, and is expressed as it could not be expressed, if no 
one of these lost men had ever been created. It is the 
sum total of the final universe which will project into the 
eternities all that God is, all that he has done, and declare 
all that he longed to secure. 

+. If you have fully caught the significance of my dis- 
cussion you surely see that I have been indirectly trying 
to do several things: First, to meet the point of the 
restorationist, that, to evince the love of God, the final © 
universe must be made up entirely of righteous persons; 
second, to meet the point of the annihilationist, that the © 
obdurate sinners must be blotted out of existence as — 
having no longer any teleological worth; and, third, to 
modify Calvinism into a system of true moral freedom, 
and yet to keep the basal notion of divine decree. In- | 
stead of saying that God has decreed the whole destiny of 
a man, I say that the coercion covers only the one fact of 
everlasting service, and the man himself freely determines 
the kind of service he will render. It may be urged that — 
under the attribute of omniscience my modification — 
amounts only to a matter of words; but it amounts to a : 
moral reality, for it fairly introduces the element of moral — 

Beas : : : 
responsibility. According to my view, God is not causal : 
to any ultimate condition of personal character. And, | 
further, and in harmony with this view, the moral joy of — 
everlasting sainthood is not an automatic outcome, but is” 
a truly personal rejoicing won, with God’s aid, by thor- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 469 


ough ethical procedure. My thought can be crowded into 
a sentence: The rim of destiny ts by God’s decree, but the 
personal center of destiny is by man’s choice. 

8. I cannot close this discussion without lifting into 
notice another point, a point which I am anxious to lodge 
in your hearts and to leave there. These lost men are 
outside the new race. Their service of fear belongs to the 
final universe; but it belongs to the cosmic sweep of the 
kingdom, and has no possible place in the kingdom of 
Christ. They have lost their race. In the most whole- 
somely rigid thinking, they are no longer men. Every 
real man—every moral person realizing the essential scope 
of manhood—every real man will yield to Christ and enter 
the new race and love his Lord, and love all men forever. 
The final brotherhood will have lost only those who 
refused to be men complete. 








es THE SIXTH DOCTRINAL DIVISION 
‘R E GOD REVEALED IN REDEMPTION 


The doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity seemed to me most 
absurd in my agnostic days. But now, as a pure agnostic, I see in 
them no rational difficulty at all. As to the Trinity, the plurality of 
persons is necessarily implied in the companion doctrine of the In- 
carnation. So that at best there is here but one difficulty, since, 
duality being postulated in the doctrine of the Incarnation, there is no 
further difficulty for pure agnosticism in the doctrine of plurality. — 
George John Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, pp. 174, 175- 


Athanasius, then, held to a trinity of three personal Beings. . . . 
But if Athanasius held to three persons in the strict sense, how did he 
save himself from tritheism? I answer: In the same way as his prede- 
cessors had done before him, by the doctrine of one supreme cause. . . . 
The Latin fathers before Augustine universally held to a trinity of 
three personal beings united in a generic nature by community of 
essence. They held to the real subordination of the Son to the 
Father.—Levi Leonard Paine, A Critical History of the Evolution of — 
Trinitarianism, pp. 45, 47, 62. 


Perhaps, however, one may be allowed to doubt whether, i all 
respects, the term person may not be taken to signify “‘the same 
thing” in us as in God. It is true, as before observed, that three 
persons among men or angels would convey the idea of three different 
and separate beings; but it may be questioned whether this arises 
from anything necessarily conveyed in the idea of personality. We 
have been accustomed to observe personality only in connection with 
separate beings; but this separation seems to be but a circumstance 
connected with personality, and not anything which arises out of 
personality itself. . . . In God, the distinct persons are represented 
as having a common foundation in one being; but this union also forms 
no part of the idea of personality, nor can be proved inconsistent with 
it.—Richard Watson, Theological Institutes, i, 449, 45°. 


But how this community in unity is possible is one of the deepest mys- 
teries of speculation. The only suggestion of solution seems to lie in the 
notion of necessary creation. Such creation would be unbegun and 
endless, and would depend on the divine nature and not on the divine 
will. If now we suppose the divine nature to be such that the essential 
God must always and eternally produce other beings than himself, 
those other beings, though numerically distinct from himself, would 
be essential implications of himself. There would be at once a numer- 
ical plurality and an organic unity.—Borden P. Bowne, Theism, The 
Deems Lectures for 1902, p. 288. 


Each is necessarily and eternally one in Being with the Others; 
there are not three Gods. Each is not the Others; there are three 
Persons.—H. C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, p. 23. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 473 


THEOLOGY, or the doctrine of God, is usually discussed 
at the beginning of systematic theology, and doubtless 
there is much formal advantage in the usual method ; but 
there are several reasons why I have kept this great 
doctrine for our last work together. In the first place, 
this system of doctrine has been largely a study of the 
divine movement in redemption, and now at the end of our 
study it is fitting to ask the question, What is the con- 
ception of God which has been gradually revealed in this 
redemptional movement? In the second place, the at- 
mosphere of our study has been intensely and intention- 
ally anthropological, and I wish, if possible, to change the 
atmosphere, and leave you thinking of our God who hath 
redeemed us, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
I want you, as the last thing in systematic theology, to 
lay hold of that true Trinitarian conception of God which 
is both the fundament and the culmination of all real 
Christian thinking. And, in the third place, I have a 
pedagogical reason. As a teacher I deem it a mistake to 
discuss the Trinity with only the preparation which comes 
from theism. The student needs that new world of ideas 
and feelings which is created by following the stages of 
salvation. The Trinity is not a doctrine which can be 
made clear and vital in any situation and by mere rational 
equipment. Itisa doctrine among the finer culminations 
of Christian requirement. And a teacher may wisely ad- 
just himself to this fact. 

Perhaps also I should add a personal reason. I myself 
reached not only my interest in the doctrine of the Trinity, 
but also my full conception of its meaning, by means of 
my years of study of the ways of God with men in their 
redemption. I had almost no interest in the doctrine of 
the Trinity—it was a vague burden in my mind—until I 
felt the significance of the work of Christ; then I saw the 
Christian doctrine of God for the first time, 


XXXV. THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 


Berore taking up the doctrine of the Trinity, it is im- 
portant for us to make a study of the divine attributes. 
But our study will be a brief one, inasmuch as I consider 
the subject entirely subordinate to our work on the 
doctrine of the Trinity. 

What is a Divine Attribute? It is any characteristic 
which we must ascribe to God to express what he really 
is. The question comes up here: Does an attribute ex- 
press a divine reality or merely a way in which we need to 
conceive of God’s nature? My answer, as implied in my 
definition, is: Both. Surely an attribute expresses our 
human conception, and so it is a relative truth probably; 
but there is a point of reality in the human conception. I 
hold that the revelation of God in redemption is reliable. 
By this I do not mean that we get the total reality; but we 
do get some reality, and all the reality possible to us in 
this life. Deeper down, this must be connected with our 
discussions of knowledge, Christian certainty, and the 
intermediate state. 

Kinds of Divine Attributes. There are two kinds of di- 
vine characteristics: 1. Definitive attributes, or those which 
are essential to an adequate definition of God; 2. Deserip- 
tive attributes, or those which are essential when we aim 
to describe more closely the Being that we have already 
defined. 

There is always a temptation to say that what I calla 
definitive attribute is more fundamental than a descriptive 
attribute; but I am not quite ready to say so. For ex- 
ample, I am not sure that personality is any more funda- 
mental, any more necessary to the very existence of God, 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 475 


than is moral love, although surely personality is more 
primary in our own thinking about God. 

Definition of God. The characteristics which we need 
to define God are the following: 1. Spirituality; 2. Unity 
or individuality ; 3. Personality; 4. Moral bearing; 5. Ab- 
soluteness; 6. Triunity. 

With these six characteristics we can so define God 
as to have in terse speech the basis—not the practical 
basis but the philosophical basis—of the Christian con- 
ception of God, namely: The God of the Christian faith is 
one Spirit, personal, moral, absolute, and triune. A better 
definition for homiletical use is this: The God of redemp- 
tion is a personal Trinity, one God of absolute moral love. 
In many connections it is enough to say: God is moral 
love. Or, where the moral background is entirely pro- 
tected, we may say, with Saint John, simply, God is love. 


PLAN OF THE DESCRIFTIVE ATTRIBUTES 


I. BELONGING To THE PERSONAL NATURE. 
Omntpotence, the characteristic of God’s will. 
II. BELONGING TO THE PERSONAL AND Mora NATURE. 
Righteousness, the first characteristic of God’s personal relation 
to holiness. 
Moral Love, the second and culminating characteristic of God’s 
personal relation to holiness. 
III. BELONGING To THE ABSOLUTE NATURE. 
Aseity, the characteristic of God’s absolute relation to causation. 
Eternity, the characteristic of God’s absolute relation to time. 
Immutability, the characteristic of God’s absolute relation to the 
process of history. 
Omnipresence, the characteristic of God’s absolute relation to 
space. 
Omnisctence, the characteristic of God’s absolute relation to 
reality. 
IV. The structural characteristic of the one Triune Spirit is holiness. 


COMMENT ON SOME OF THE ATTRIBUTES 


In other connections enough has been said concerning 
righteousness (moral concern), moral love, and holiness; 


476 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


but there are some of the attributes remaining which 
require explanation, and others which require more or 
less notice. 

Omnipotence. By the divine omnipotence we are not 
to understand that God can will anything whatsoever. 
To will anything, even God must have a motive, and so 
he never can make any volition contrary to his own nature. 
Not only so, but all the features of his nature come 
together in a perfect organism, under the law of holiness, 
and so no volition can spring out of a fragment of God. 

Aseity. This means merely that God causes himselj. 
‘““God’s essence is his own act.’”’ ‘God eternally makes 
himself what he is.” Two things are really covered by 
the attribute: 1. That God is uncaused. He is (as in 
theism) the First Cause; and so he is, in causation a@ se, 
from himself. 2. There is a profounder idea, namely, 
God is absolute life. All the infinite potencies of being 
he has just in himself. He is life, life, eternal, absolute 
life. 

Eternity. As aseity emphasizes God’s vitality from 
the standpoint of the idea of causation, so the attribute 
of eternity emphasizes that vitality from the standpoint 
of the idea of time. In his own life God is timeless. The 
surface thought is that God has neither beginning nor 
end. The deeper thought is that his being is so absolute 
that he is independent of the time process and has only a 


living present. Dr. Latimer used to say that the succes-— 
sion in God’s thinking was logical but not chronological. — 
And Saint Augustine, in commenting on the ninetieth 


psalm, says: “(In the life of God nothing will be as if it 
were not yet; or hath been as if it were no longer; but 
there is only that which is; and this is Eternity.” But 
the attribute of eternity does not mean that God is in- 
capable of taking our point of view, and perfectly treating 
us under the terms of the time process, 


: 





THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 477 


Immutability. When we say that God never changes, 
that ‘“He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,” 
we do not mean that his personal bearing is ever the 
same. For the record in the Bible indicates change after 
change in God’s dealings with men. And, in the very 
nature of the case, man being free, the divine volitional 
attitude must vary somewhat to meet the changing 
conditions in man’s life. The very joy of God over the 
conversion of a sinner, for example, would mean some 
change in the divine bearing toward the sinner. No, 
what we mean is that in being, nature, character, motives 
of action, God is unchangeable. You can always rely 
upon him. In our employment of the term immutable 
we are not seeking, we are not predicating a rigidity of 
personal life, with no fresh pulsation in self-consciousness 
and no new movement in self-decision; we are seeking 
simply a personal and ethical reliability. Such absolute 
reliability, of course, implies perfection ever, and shuts 
‘out the pantheistic notion of a developing God. 

Omntipresence. This might well be called the spot of 
ingenuity in systematic theology; for right here the theo- 
logian (even if he have not an atom of basal metaphysics) 
tries to see what new thing can be said. Bishop Marten- 
sen says: “As the bird in the air, as the fish in the sea, so 
all creatures live and move and have their being in God.” 
A striking amplification of Saint Paul, but not extremely 
elucidating! Dr. Samuel Clarke taught that God is 
omnipresent “by an infinite extension of his essence.”’ 
What that means I do not know. I always feel some 
gratitude, though, toward Richard Watson for his hest- 
tation at Dr. Clarke’s view! Dr. Shedd says: “‘ The divine 
omnipresence means rather the presence of all things to 
God than God’s presence to all things.”” This is an un- 
intentional evasion growing out of an unconscious deism. 
Dr. Miley says: “In the plenitude and perfection of these 


478 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


personal attributes God is omnipresent in the truest, 
deepest sense.’’ This is entirely true, and on the right 
trace; but it needs as much explanation as the term it 
aims to explain. 

In considering the divine omnipresence we would better 
quickly make distinction between the practical message 
of the doctrine and the philosophy of the doctrine. The 
practical message of the doctrine is very plain. It means 
simply that space is no hindrance to God. Wherever a 
thing may be hidden, God can get at it. Wherever in 
the universe you may be, the whole of God is there avail- 
able for judgment, or help, or companionship. The 
underlying philosophy should begin with the swift banish- 
ment of deism. How that unspeakable curse hides and 
lingers in the Christian church! Already I have several 
times suggested what I myself need as a substitute 
for deism, namely, a universe entirely and constantly 
dynamic of God, a universe which is nothing other than 
God in cosmic action. If you are unable to accept sucha 
philosophy, then it is wiser to be content with the practi- 
cal message of the doctrine of omnipresence, for the 
rhetorical ingenuities in explanation will never lead you 
in any reality. Merely quote Saint Paul without the 
bird in the air and the fish in the sea! 


THE ATTRIBUTE OF OMNISCIENCE 


By the divine omniscience we mean that attribute 
whereby God perfectly and eternally knows himself and 
all reality and all possibility. The moment we say that 
God’s knowledge is perfect and eternal we are really 
affirming that it is not acquired. There is no process, no 
progress from what is known on and on to further knowl- 
edge. In other words, the knowledge of God is tntuztive. 

The Point of Difficulty. How can God know a con- 
tingent event before the event has any beginning? About 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 479 


this point of difficulty there has been hot dispute both in 
theology and in philosophy, some of the strongest thinkers 
claiming that divine foreknowledge of a truly contingent 
event is impossible. For an elaborate discussion I can- 
not afford the space; but I will notice the most important 
points. 

Main Objections Noted and Answered. The main ob- 
jections to the doctrine of divine foreknowledge of con- 
tingent events are these: 

1. An event contingent upon a future free volition is 
not an object of knowledge, for there is nothing to know 
until something begins to take place. 

Answer: When it is said that there zs nothing to know 
the objector is really quietly assuming that God’s knowl- 
edge is acquired, and our claim is that God mtuzts the 
contingent event. 

2. Were there foreknowledge of what a person will 
decide to do, the foreknowledge would necessitate his 
decision, and so his personal freedom would be destroyed. 

Answer: The idea that foreknowledge would be coercive 
arises from the confusing of certainty with necessity. 
A future event may be certain to take place, and yet it 
may not be necessary. The foreknowledge is not causal. 
“A thing will not take place because God foreknows it, 
but he foreknows it because it will take place.’’ Knowl- 
edge of any sort is purely subjective and can bring 
nothing to pass unless it can employ an efficient will. 
Can you not see how entirely inoperative knowledge 
alone is? If as a teacher I could in any way come ab- 
solutely to foreknow that Brother Z. will master one 
lesson next week, would my secret knowledge, by just 
being there in my mind, compel him to master the les- 
son? If I had such knowledge, the event, his mastery 
of the lesson, would be a certainty, but it would not be 
a necessity. 


480 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


3. In actual history God treats men as 7f he were un- 
certain as to their ultimate decisions, for he treats all 
men with redemptional urgency. 

Answer: The supposition here is that God would not 
try to save any sinner who will ultimately reject salvation, 
if he foreknew the fact of the ultimate rejection. The 
supposition is entirely wrong. Take this case: The Holy 
Spirit urges a sinner to repent—what does that urgency 
mean? It means just three things, neither more nor less: 
first, that the sinner can repent; second, that the sinner 
needs to repent; and, third, that God wants the sinner to 
repent. Whatever God might know or not know as to 
the final outcome, the moral love of God would never 
give up striving with a sinner as long as there was any 
conscience remaining. 

4. Here the objector relates the doctrine of fore- 
knowledge to the doom of the lost, and says: To create a 
man foreknowing his everlasting doom is out of harmony 
with the conception of God necessary in a Christian 
theodicy. 

Answer: Not to repeat my own discussion in theodicy, 
I will meet this objection narrowly. The idea that an 
adequate theodicy can more easily be constructed under 
the terms of divine nescience than under the terms of 
divine foreknowledge is precipitant and superficial. Even 
a nescient Deity would now know that some men have 
irretrievably rejected righteousness, and yet he con- 
tinues to create free moral persons. And, deeper than all 
that, conceive of the Creator starting a race of men, 
every one of them having the possibility of eternal damna- 
tion, and yet not having any certainty as to the outcome! 
The doctrine of nescience has in it no superior possibilities 
in theodicy. 

The Unanswerable Argument. Along the line of proph- 
ecy a Scripture argument of great force can be formulated ; 


CE EEE 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 481 


but the argument which to me is unanswerably convinc- 
ing is this: If God has no foreknowledge of contingent 
events, then he not only arranged a vast and complex 
plan of redemption without knowing that even one moral 
person would ever be saved; but in carrying out this plan 
of redemption he actually sent his only Son as Redeemer 
into the reality of human temptation without knowing 
that this Son, Jesus Christ, would resist the temptation. 
To accept this strange, strange doctrine of divine nescience 
I would need to become a necessitarian, and once a ne- 
cessitarian I would not have any need for the doctrine 
at all. 

Fact and Method. Of course, the divine foreknowledge 
cannot be comprehended by us; but in this respect it is 
not different from many features in God’s life; indeed, it 
is not different from some features in our own life. How 
extremely easy it is for shallow minds to think, be- 
cause they are familiar with certain phases of human 
activity, that they comprehend the deeps of manhood! 
About all we can do in any chapter of search is to lift a 
bit of reality up into apprehension. And that is all we 
aim to do with the doctrine of God’s foreknowledge—to 
apprehend it, to make it seizable mentally. 

In trying to apprehend the doctrine of foreknowledge, 
there are several helpful things which we can do: 

1. We can carefully distinguish between fact and 
method. That is, we can narrow our difficulty. We can, 
if convinced by the evidence that God does foreknow 
contingent events, say, “I grant the fact, but I do not 
see how there can be such knowledge, I do not apprehend 
the method of it.” If you say that you cannot make this 
distinction between fact and method, I will insist that 
you can; for you have already apprehended many facts 
without even trying to lay hold of the method. What 
I urge is this: It is not wise—neither is it fair—to let 


482 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


your difficulty vaguely spread all over the doctrine, and 
to hesitate before the evident fact merely because you are 
unable to get a clue to the method. 

2. The fact once seized, we can do something in ap- 
prehending the method. For one thing, we can get rid 
of time. Even if you are not willing to touch the point in 
metaphysics, you already, with the attribute of eternity, 
have the idea that God himself is absolutely independent 
of time. If God, then, in grasp of reality is unhindered 
by time, why do you say that mere futurity, one phase 
of the time process, can shut him away from an event? 
Why do you require the Eternal God to plod through 
your tenses? But you say, “I cannot think away time.” 
You mean that you cannot picture it away; you can 
think it away. 


3. One further thing we can do in lifting the method of — 


foreknowledge into apprehension. We can emphasize 
the point that God’s knowledge is all ntustive knowledge. 
We ourselves have a certain degree of intuitive experience, 
not very much, surely, and yet enough so that we have a 
clear point of departure in our thinking about God. With 
this point of departure, I find it possible to apprehend 
God as having an absolute and eternal self-consciousness, 
and this consciousness as being filled with the certainty 
of all reality and all possibility. 


XXXVI. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE 
TRINITY 


THE DoctTRINE IN ESSENTIAL STATEMENT 


The Aim. The aim here is to express the doctrine of 
the Trinity in bare essentiality. How much is essential 
to any real Trinitarianism? 

Rejected Views. First, let us approach‘the case nega- 
tively. All Trinitarians reject the following views: 

1. The Humanitarian view that the Trinity is God the 
Father, the man Jesus Christ, and a divine influence 
called the Spirit of God. There are a number of phases 
of this view, but in every phase Christ is nothing other 
than a man. 

2. The Arian view that the Trinity is God the Father, 
Christ a highly exalted creature, and the Holy Spirit a 
less exalted creature. There are variations also of this 
view, but they have no significance in this connec- 
tion. 

3. The Modalistic view (Sabellian) that there is one 
God and three successive and peculiar manifestations of 
him in history. Or, one person with three aspects, 
modes, relations toward the world. 

4. The Swedenborgian view that the Trinity is one God 
with soul (the Father), body (the Son), and operation 
(the Holy Spirit). 

5. The Tritheistic view that the Trinity consists of three 
divine individuals. 

All these five views are regarded as heresy by every 
man who has the right to call himself a Trinitarian at all. 

Essential Points of Belief. 

1. There is only one God. 


484 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


2. Of this one God there are three historical manifesta- 
tions, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost. 

But these manifestations are not “mere masks.” As 
Dr. Dorner says, “A trinity of Revelation is a misrepre- 
sentation if there is not behind it a trinity of Reality.” 
Therefore, 

3. These three historical manifestations express three 
inner distinctions in the Godhead. ‘The faces are turned 
not merely outward toward the world, but inward toward 
himself, so that they behold themselves in mutual re- 
flection.” 

4. These distinctions are not only internal, they are so 
fundamental as to be necessary to the ongoing of the 
divine life. 

5. As these distinctions are thus fundamental, they are 
eternal. God did not develop into them. They always 
have been and always must be essential to his exist- 
ence. 

6. These three historical manifestations—the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost—expressing three inner, 
fundamental, and eternal distinctions in the Godhead, 
are in the Scriptures treated as personal; and so we name 
them Persons. 


Ways oF MEETING THE TRINITARIAN PROBLEM 


The Problem. The problem of the Trinity does not 
come merely from an effort to interpret the command of 
baptism and other passages of Scripture, but mainly from 
a larger effort to harmonize with the unity of God the 
Christian conception of redemption as involving the 
Father who gave his only-begotten Son, the absolute 
deity of Jesus Christ, and the personality of the Holy 
Spirit. On the one side we must hold fast to monotheism, 
to the rigid conception of one God, and yet, on the other 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 485 


side, we must protect the three personal manifestations, 
“the three persons out in history.’’ To bring up the old 
test, the Trinitarian problem is, ‘‘ Not to divide the sub- 
stance and not to confuse the persons.”’ 

Ways of Meeting the Problem. 

1. The most popular way of meeting this problem is 
not to meet it at all, but to declare the reality beyond 
human apprehension. Of the many agnostic statements, 
I will give only one. Dr. W. L. Alexander says: ‘‘ What 
I gather from it [the Bible] is, that there are three mani- 
festations of God in relation to the created universe and 
the work of human redemption, described severally as 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that these three mani- 
festations of God correspond to distinctions in the God- 
head for which we have no names, and of the nature of 
which nothing has been revealed to us; of which, in fact, 
beyond the simple fact of their existence, we know noth- 
ing. What is very plainly made known to us is the 
economical distinction between Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit—a distinction that may be stated in the most 
intelligible form, and made clear by a reference to the 
works ascribed in Scripture to these three respectively; 
and to this we are led to believe that a distinction of some 
sort in the divine nature corresponds, but of what sort we 
do not know and therefore do not pretend to say. This 
way of stating the doctrine has the advantage of avoiding 
modalism on the one hand by asserting a real distinction 
in the divine nature, while on the other it keeps clear of 
the unintelligible and self-contradictory statements of 
the Catholic doctrine by simply asserting the fact of a 
distinction in the divine nature without pronouncing 
upon the kind of distinction as personal or capable of 
being described by any term, direct or analogical, in use 
among men; and by confining the distinction expressed 
by the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to the 


486 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


economical distinctions in the divine manifestations in 
relation to creation and redemption.” 

2. Another way of trying to meet the problem is to 
consider these inner distinctions as less than personal. 
Whatever the manifestations out in history may be, the 
distinctions are not actual persons as they exist in the 
life of the Godhead. For example, to Nitzsch they are 
ineffable fundamental powers; and to Dorner they are — 
something between an attribute and egoity (‘zwischen 
Eigenschaften und Ichheit oder Personlichkeit,” ch. 
Glaubenslehre, i, 368). 

3. The most speculative view is a theological dripping — 
out of the German philosophy, a view which is quite 
often found in American theology. It is stated in several 
slightly different ways, but essentially amounts to this: 
In the full self-consciousness of God there are three 
movements, each movement yielding an eternal reality 
in being. God the Infinite Person makes himself (Thesis) 
the object of his own thought (Antithesis), and then 
identifies subject and object (Synthesis). The Thesis is 
the Father; the Antithesis is the Son; and the Synthesis 
is the Holy Spirit. 

4. In this, the last view to be mentioned, the divine 
persons are considered real eternal persons, each one ca- 
pable of self-consciousness and self-decision, and yet all so 
bound together as not to be separate individual Gods. In 
Jonathan Edwards’s Observations Concerning the Scrip~ 
ture (Economy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemp- 
tion we find such a remark as this: ‘‘ And that there was a 
consultation among the three Persons about it, as much 
doubtless, as about the creation of man (for the work of 
redemption is a work wherein the distinct concern of ea 
Person is infinitely greater than in the work of creation) 
and so, that there was a joint agreement of all; but no 
properly a covenant between them.” How strange t i 



















: 











THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 487 


sounds over against all the recent timidities of theological 
utterance on the Trinity! It almost seems as if Athan- 
asius had spoken again! 


A Stupy or Our Lorp’s OBEDIENCE 


1. Our Saviour’s bearing is ever that of obedience to 
his Father. 

This bearing appears even in Christ’s boyhood. “How 
is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that I must be in 
my Father’s house?” (Saint Luke 2. 49.) Again: ‘My 
meat is to do the will of him that sent me” (Saint John 4. 
34). And yet again, in the Garden: “ And he said, Abba, 
Father, all things are possible unto thee; remove this cup 
from me: howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt” 
(Saint Mark 14. 36). 

This bearing of our Lord involves a discrimination in 
his consciousness between himself as a person and his 
Father as a cotemporaneous person; and then a distinct 
self-decision of obedience toward his Father. Of course, 
there can be obedience in the sense of doing one’s duty 
under the moral ideal in conscience. But you cannot 
study the life of Jesus Christ, and conclude that by his 
Father he meant merely a moral ideal in conscience; for 
with him the Father had many associations, not precisely 
moral, but intensely personal. 

The significance of our Lord’s obedience, then, should 
in the very nature of the case exclude every form of 
modalism. Whatever we may come to in our view of the 
Trinity, that unbiblical idea, found here and there even 
now in disguised forms, that the Trinity is one God with 
three successive and exclusive historic attitudes must be 
cast out of the church, not only in the name of Christian 
doctrine, but also in the name of sane biblical scholarship. 
There could be no obedience of our Lord toward his 
Father, if that Father were a special historic attitude of 


. 


488 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 























God no longer in existence. To fairly interpret the 
Scripture, the Father and Son can only be regarded as 
real persons, now over against each other, one claiming 
obedience and the other yielding obedience. 

2. The background of our Lord’s obedience, as the 
entire matter is held in his own self-consciousness, is a 
preéxistent personal state which he had with his Father. 

In Saint John’s gospel (17. 4, 5) we read: “I glorified 
thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which 
thou hast given me todo. And now, Father, glorify thou 
me with thine own self with the glory which I had with 
thee before the world was’”’ (compare Saint John 6. 62 
and 8. 58). 

Here our Lord is thinking of his finished work of obe- 
dience, and he prays that he may again experience the 
glorious estate which he had given up in carrying out 
his Father’s command. The earthly obedience is to hi 
but a feature of the whole scheme of obedience that 
required the giving up of the life in eternal glory. Wi 
have in this passage no mere longing for rest, no m 
desire such as the saint has ‘“‘to go home to God”’; the 
scene is too sharply cut to be explained in such a manner 
there is every indication of actual personal remem 
brance. 

I am loath to grant the time and space, but there i 
sure to be a legitimate expectation at this point tha 
some serious reference will be made to Beyschlag’s view 
of our Lord’s preéxistence. According to Beyschlag, o 
Saviour’s preéxistence was not personal, but merely de 
Jesus, in his own self-consciousness, was but the ideal So: 
of man come down from heaven. “Jesus thinks of him: 
self as preéxistent, not because he knew himself to be 
second God, and remembered a former life in heaven, 
because he recognized himself in Daniel’s image (Dan. 7 
13) as the bearer of the kingdom of heaven, and beca 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 489 


this Son of man as well as the kingdom which he brings to 
earth must spring from heaven.’”’ This is the ordinary 
way in which our Saviour regarded his preéxistence, but 
now we come to the extraordinary way. The ideal taken 
from the Old Testament is, in moments of spiritual exal- 
tation, transformed into seeming personal remembrance! 
“Especially in the tense final period of his life, in excited 
moments and conflicts, . . . and, above all, in the frame 
of mind of the intercessory prayer, where he is raised 
above the world and time, it appears quite credible that 
such a consciousness of eternal existence should at times 
flash up in him like a mental vision.”’ 

In plain terms, this view of Beyschlag means that Jesus 
Christ could and did delude himself into seeming to 
remember that he had lived before the world was created 
and verily shared the glory of the Eternal God! And a 
man—oj that kind—actually founded the Christian faith, 
and gained the following of men like Saint Paul! And 
now undoubted Christian scholarship finds it easier, finds 
it more rational, to believe that than to believe that our 
Lord was God, and that he did share the glory of his 
Father before the ages began! Surely there are wonders 
in psychology as well as wonders in grace! 

But my main objection to Beyschlag’s view is not that 
it is rationalism, and rationalism almost as irrational as 
that of Paulus, but that it destroys the peculiar ethical 
character of our Lord’s self-sacrifice in his work of re- 
demption. This brings us to the great utterance of Saint 
Paul, which we must now look at from a second point of 
view. 

3. “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ 
Jesus: who, being in the form of God, counted it not a 
prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, 
taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness 
of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled 


490 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the 
death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted 
him, and gave unto him the name which is above every 
name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
of things in heaven and things on earth and things under 
the earth, and that every tongue should confess that 
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” 
(Phil. 2. 5-11). 

We do not need to recall my former exegesis of this 
passage. I only ask you to read the passage over and 
over again until its meaning and its majesty fill your soul. 
Saint Paul traces back the life of Jesus Christ to its pre- 
éxistent point in the Godhead. Back there in the eter- 
nities there was somewhat in God that afterward became 
the being “found in fashion as a man” and called Jesus 
Christ. Now I ask every man who is a Trinitarian at all, 
What was this somewhat? A mere ideal conception? A 
phase of the one complete self-consciousness of God? 
Something between attribute and egoity? An ineffable, 
fundamental power? An agnostic entity which cannot 
even be named? If you make any one of these answers, 
then I must insist that when the Son of God became man, 
in the event of becoming man, there was no obedience. 
Nothing short of a person can obey. Obedience means 
self-decision, and self-decision is impossible without self- 
consciousness. And if there was no obedience there was 
no self-sacrifice on the part of the Son of God in becoming 
man. No ideal, no phase of self-consciousness, no some- 


VX eee 


—— ee 


thing between attribute and egoity, no ineffable, funda-— 


mental power, no agnostic entity which cannot be named, 
could sacrifice itself, could empty itself, could voluntarily 
give up the glory of God and take on the form of a servant. 
No impersonal thing, describable or indescribable, could 
with awful self-cost become man to redeem us from sin. 
In the presence of all these hesitations and timidities and 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 491 


ingenuities and evasions, I insist in the name of ordinary 
consistency that every Trinitarian should clearly make 
choice—either to give up the whole moral content of 
the Pauline doctrine of the infinite self-sacrifice of the 
preéxistent Son of God in our behalf, or to grant to the 
preéxistent Son of God self-decision, self-consciousness, 
personality. 

4. One more step we need to take. Our Lord’s obedi- 
ence was the obedience of a subordinate Son. He was not 
obedient to God as an angel might be obedient to God. 
He was the Son of God, and obedience was the expression 
of the most fundamental relation of his being. His 
divine Sonship involved two things in relation to God the 
Father: first, an equality in nature; second, a subordina- 
tion in person. And both this equality and this subor- 
dination are ever manifest in the spirit and manner of his 
obedience. 

In Saint John’s gospel these two things, equality and 
subordination, are expressed again and again; but there 
is one remarkable passage (5. 25-27) which I wish you 
especially to note: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The 
hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. 
For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he 
to the Son also to have life in himself: and he gave him 
authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of 
man.” 

This passage not only teaches subordination and equal- 
ity as clearly as do those passages which show our Lord’s 
obedience more definitely; but it goes further, it does a 
profounder thing, for it reveals the fact that our Lord’s 
equality with his Father has been given to him. The Son 
hath life in himself (that is, he is an absolute source of 
life) even as God the Father hath life in himself; but the 
Son’s life is not original (no reference here to sequence, 


492 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


merely to causation) with him, it is derived from his 
Father. 

As a result of this brief study of our Lord’s obedience we 
have two conclusions which should have large considera- — 
tion in our final construction of the doctrine of the Trinity: 
First, as the preéxistent Son of God, our Lord was a 
real person, having self-consciousness and making self- 
decision. Second, our Lord’s subordination is so funda- 
mental that his very absolute fullness of life is itself a 
derived life, a life which is an effect, a life which is caused 
by his Father. In the profoundest sense, our Lord’s 
obedience is the obedience of a Son who is both on 
and essentially subordinate to his Father. . : 


CONSISTENCY IN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 

One very glaring inconsistency is often found in the 
conventional works in systematic theology. Their teach- 
ing in Christology is that Jesus Christ is one person with 
two natures, a divine nature and a human nature; but the 
human nature is impersonal, merely a bare nature added 
to the divine nature of the one Eternal Person. Our 
Lord is (to quote a typical statement) “a conscious, in- 
telligent Agent, who preserves from eternity into time 
and onward to eternity his own unbroken identity. And 
this we not inaptly or unreasonably term his undivided 
personality.” Some of these theologians, indeed, are so 
anxious to protect the full personality of the Son of God 
in the event of the Incarnation that they find it necessary — 
to reject every form of the doctrine of the kenosis. Not 
only so, but in their discussions of our Lord’s preéxistence 
these theologians are wont to maintain, and to maintain 
with commendable energy, that his preéxistence was not 
ideal, but was personal. And yet to these very men, in 
their cautious, theistic treatment of the doctrine of the 
Trinity, the eternal Son of God, the second person in the 





= 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 493 


Godhead, is ‘““not what we mean by a person”’—uo, he is 
an agnostic nondescript to remain in mystery until a verita- 
ble person is needed in Christology! 

Another inconsistency almost equally pronounced is 
to be found in the work of many defensive theologians, 
namely, an inconsistency in their teaching concerning 
the Holy Spirit. In their theology, in the doctrine of 
God, the Holy Ghost is viewed as something less than a 
real person; but in every other place, where any reference 
is made to the nature or to the dispensation or to the 
activity of the Spirit, he is regarded as having not only 
functions of his own, but also a will of his own. Indeed, 
some of the men I have in mind devote precious pages to 
prove “the proper personality”’ of the Holy Spirit and 
look upon the point as essential to genuine orthodoxy. 
Now, how the Holy Spirit can be a person making actual 
self-decisions out in the application of redemption to men, 
and yet nothing but a principle, or potency, or impersonal 
entity, in the deep life of the Eternal and Immutable 
God, is ‘“a mystery so boundless that no man can under- 
stand it, and I will therefore not pretend to understand 
it”’! 

CONSTRUCTION OF THE DOCTRINE 

Special Points to Be Protected. In constructing the 
doctrine of the Trinity, under the demands of the Trini- 
tarian problem as already stated, there are certain special 
points which we must constantly seek to protect. These 
points are: 

1. The Feature of Structural Unity. It is not enough 
to provide for a “moral unity,” or the unity of three 
persons who are united in moral and personal purpose. 
Christian theism requires us entirely to avoid tritheism; 
and we need, in some way, to conceive of God as one 
individual structure with only one attitude of personal 
will. 


404 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


2. The Feature of Subordination. We should protect 
that profound bearing of subordination which the Son of 
God ever shows in his obedience to his Father. And we 
should also protect, at the same time, the subordination 
of the Holy Spirit to both the Father and the Son, for 
this is revealed in the Scripture almost as clearly, and the 
point is fully confirmed in the history of the Christian 
consciousness. 

3. The Feature of Self-sacrifice. Not only are we to 
protect the moral costliness of Redemption to God the 
Father, but we must also protect the whole tremendous 
fact of self-cost to the Son of God in becoming man to 
carry out the plan of salvation. 

4. The Feature of Equality. We must protect the 
absolute equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit in every attribute of Deity. It is not enough to 
construct the doctrine so that the three persons are equal 
in such attributes as righteousness and love, and leave 
the matter there : the divine persons are so to be conceived 
as to be equal in the attribute of omnipotence, in the 
attribute of eternity, and in every attribute belonging to 
the absolute nature of God. In yet plainer speech, I 
mean that the relation of subordination is not to be al- 
lowed to impair, in our doctrine, the absolute deity of the 
Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

s. The Feature of Moral Love. Just as I have em- 
phasized moral love in my entire treatment of the phi- 
losophy of the Christian faith, so now we must aim so to 
construct the doctrine of the Trinity as to exalt the 
divine attribute of love. 

Relation to Athanasius. That no one of you may be 
misled in even the slightest degree, I will, before going 
on to more positive work, clearly indicate my relation to 
Athanasius. For a number of years I was influenced— 
yes, I would better say dominated—by the patristic 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 495 


interpretation of a class of scholars converging in Dr. 
Dorner; and during those years I supposed that Athana- 
sius, in his mighty struggle with the Arians, had no clear 
conception of the nature and significance of personality. 
And I actually came to think that Augustine’s doctrine 
of the Trinity (from which our present perilous Trinitarian 
situation has largely come) was a normal development 
out of what Athanasius probably meant at the centre! 
But after a long period of doctrinal unrest and search it 
began to dawn upon me that it was they, my patristic 
authorities, who had no clear conception of the nature 
and significance of personality; and that, precisely be- 
cause of their own lack of fundamental thinking in 
philosophy, they were, in spite of all their fine, technical 
scholarship, incapable of a complete mastery of the mean- 
ing of Athanasius. Now there is not the touch of a doubt 
in my own mind but that the view Athanasius held of 
the Trinity was essentially this: The Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost are three persons, each having personal 
consciousness and personal will; but the Father is the 
Supreme Cause, and because of this the other two persons 
are subordinate to him. 

In getting at the bearing of the Christian consciousness 
upon the interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, 
the important man to me is not Augustine, but Athana- 
sius. For this choice I have two reasons: First, Augus- 
tine seems to me never to have caught the Christian view 
of God. In fact, much that he says about God and the 
ways of God is Christianity so tampered with as to lose the 
spirit of the New Testament altogether. Second, Ath- 
anasius was providentially placed. He stood, in his 
defense of the Christian faith, in a crisis where he had to 
grasp the basal import of the Trinity. For, such a grasp 
was necessary before he could see how to protect in 
statement the absolute deity of Jesus Christ. In other 


496 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


words, Athanasius was at one of those crucial turning 
points in the development of doctrine, or, more exactly, 
in the development of the Christian seizure of doctrine, 
where the Holy Spirit finds a wise opportunity to deepen 
one phase of the Christian consciousness. My idea, in 
truth, of the progress in doctrine is that this progress is 
seldom or never gradual, but rather zigzag, from crisis to 
crisis; and that between crises the church may not only 
make no headway, but even miss the route entirely. 
Thus, the mere fact that one thinker or leader is later 
than another in the years does not necessarily mean that 
the later man has more doctrinal insight. It is quite 
possible that he can see nothing beyond the indorsements 
of the Zeztgerst. 

While Athanasius is of the greatest importance to me, 
and is really my point of philosophical departure, I shall 
not be found clinging to him in a slavish literalism. I 
will construct the doctrine of the Trinity to satisfy, in 
Christian freedom, my own heart in its relation to our 
Lord; and my own judgment in its relation to the entire 
utterance of Christian men, in so far as that utterance is 
known to me; and my own mind in its relation to the 
teaching of the Word of God. 

The Use of Terms. My use of terms in this connection 
is the same that it has been in every other connection; 
but it may be useful to recall precisely some of the most 
important of the definitions: 

1. A person is any being capable of self-conscious de- 
cision. Or, a person is a_ self-conscious, self-decisive 
agent. 

2. An individual is a distinct item of being (or a punc- 
tual entity) that cannot be divided without losing identity. 

3. The nature of anything is the structural law by which 
the thing is precisely what it is. 

4. An organism is a complex of essential parts; all the 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 497 


parts in dependent reciprocity; and every part making 
contribution to a common end. 

In a spiritual organism of persons there is a further 
feature, namely, every person is in the organism both 
means and end. He is a means by which the organism 
works toward its end, and also a part of the end for which 
the organism exists. He lives for the entire organism, 
and the entire organism makes perpetual contribution to 
his life. 

Then there is an absolute organism, by which I mean 
one that is absolutely self-sufficient as an organism. No 
feature of the organism is self-sufficient, no feature could 
exist at all alone; but the organism as a whole is self- 
sufficient. 

The Full and Final Statement. 

1. God is one tndividual. Taken as a total, God is an 
indivisible finality. And so God is an individual in the 
precise sense that a man or an angel is an individual— 
that is, an itemnic being, a punctual entity, an actual 
existence that cannot be divided without loss of identity. 

2. This one divine individual has one nature. There 
is only one pop¢7, only one complex of attributes, only 
one structural law of action. 

3. In this one individual, with this one nature, or 
under this one structural law, there are three Persons— 
three Agents with self-consciousness and capacity for 
self-decision. That is, the whole divine individuality is 
grasped, and estimated, and consciously appropriated, 
and used as the background of decision, at three personal 
points and not merely at one. 

4. But, while the basal nature is ever one and the same, 
it is personalized in three very different ways. The First 
Person is conscious of himself as the Father, and to him 
every feature of the Godhead is mediated by that pecul- 
jarity of self-consciousness. He thinks as the Father, 


498 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


he wills as the Father, he loves as the Father. In like 
manner, the Second Person is conscious of himself as the 
Son; and the Third Person is conscious of himself as the 
Holy Spirit. This is the philosophy of the idsdérgg in — 
general; but this point of personal peculiarity I will con- — 
sider more definitely and more deeply somewhat later in 
the statement. 

5. Inasmuch, though, as the three Persons have the 
one individual nature, are under one structural law; 
inasmuch as they have the same attributes in quality and 
quantity; and inasmuch as they are ever in the pro- 
foundest personal fellowship, there is a constant inter- 
communion, a currency of personal joys, an exchange of 
personal experiences. And so each Person is vastly more 
than his isolated self could be. He lives by augment. — 
He lives in and through the other two Persons. His 
ineffable experience is the combination of three peculiar ~ 
divine experiences, of three different ways of personalizing — 
the Godhead. This is that sublime feature of God’s life 
which has been called the regexywpnate. | 

6. Interlaced in this infinite interchange of experience, 
and living under one structural law, the three divine Per- 
sons constitute an absolute personal organism. Not only 
are all three Persons organically essential; not only do 
they contribute to a common end; not only do they de-— 
pend upon each other in reciprocity ; and not only is each 
Person both means and end; but there is an eternal self- 
sufficiency which is due to the organism and to that alone. — 
Not one of the three Persons, not even the Father, could 
exist at all out of the organism. He partakes of the 
attribute of aseity itself only as he is a part of the organ- 
ism. Thus we make the unity of God fundamental to our 
entire conception of God. 

7. And yet the Father is original in supremacy as to 
just one thing, namely, causation, All the process in- 





THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 499 


organism originates with the Father. Again and again 
we are told that to be thus the causal origin the Father 
must have existed first, and then begun the line of causa- 
tion. It is not so. The Father lives only as cause. To 
cause is his method of existence—his eternal breathing, 
so to speak. Creation proper, the making of stars and 
men and all creatures, is a personal matter—an option 
under motive and the motive urgent under the law of 
personal expression ; but infinitely beyond all this personal 
urgency to create is the Father’s intrinsic and eternal 
necessity to be the causal source in the organism of the 
Godhead. Begetting the Son and causing the Holy Spirit 
are not at all a matter of optional personal expression; 
but are the method and means of self-existence. This is 
but saying in another way that the whole triune organism 
must exist or none of it can exist. 

8. This prepares the way for our bringing out and 
making emphatic the fact that the fundament of all being 
is social. In our modern thinking there are two views 
which are in perpetual clash. In one view the funda- 
ment of all being is an impersonal somewhat; in the 
other view the fundament is a solitary person. Either 
view, if thoroughly developed should be a ceaseless. 
horror to any man with a warm Christian experience. 
The fundament of all being is not an impersonal somewhat 
—a blind Infinite evolving into heartless and meaningless 
destiny. Nor is this fundament a solitary person—an 
isolated iceberg of self-consciousness—an omnipotent lone- 
liness. No, no, no, the causal fundament of all being is 
‘an actual Father who must be a Father to extst at all. 

Nearly every vagary has in it the hint of a great truth 
toward which the vagary is wandering; and this is the 
case with that German vagary concerning the divine 
Antithesis in consciousness. God the Father needs his 
Son for the fullness of his own self-consciousness. He 


























500 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


needs the Son (and they both need the Holy Spirit) 
precisely as much as the Son needs him. Thus their 
essential equality reaches into the very structure of the 
divine organism. 

g. We are able now, I think, to deepen our former 
philosophy of creation, and perhaps to change our senti- 
ment concerning that philosophy. In their effort to 
protect such Scripture teaching as that found in the third 
verse of the first chapter of Saint John’s gospel (‘All 
things were made by him’’), some theologians have 
seemed to show a tendency to minimize the Father’s 
effectual relation to creation. If there really is such a 
tendency it is all wrong. The clue to the entire truth 
lies in the fact that all creation is a social act. The 
Father is primarily the Creator; but he creates, under the 
law of personal expression, through his Son. And the Son 
confirms the creative will of the Father in the fellowship 
of moral love. And then this double will is carried out 
into the event by the Holy Spirit. 

Not only so, but the race of man (and all creation tha 
pertains to man) the Father has created for his Son. 
Whatever men might do to stay it, the Father made 4 
plan that his only Son should have an everlasting kingdom 
within the vast kingdom of God—and the Son will have 
at as an expression of his Father’s love! 

ro. Can we not now see our Lord’s obedience in a some 
what larger bearing? The Son of God must obey his 
Father. The very organism of the Godhead involves the 
absolute necessity of such obedience. Did I not tell you 
that the idea of service under the supreme will of God is a 
finality in the universe? Every created thing is made 7 
to obey. Not even free personality can escape that | 
finality. But where does that final principle of doing the 
supreme will come from? It comes from the Godhead. 
The Son of God must obey the supreme will of his Father. 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 501 


The Son, though, does not obey his Father under the 
motive of necessity. Nor does he obey his Father under . 
the motive of moral obligation even, he obeys him under 
the motive of moral love. The obedience is thus ethical 
and yet more than ethical. All the Son’s moral concern 
for the law of holiness is but the central fire of his personal 
love for his Father, and this love for his Father becomes 
the total motive of his obedience. What we find here, 
then, in the case of our Lord, is exactly what will be found 
in the eternal life of every saint, namely, a necessary 
service lifted into a service of personal love and moral 
love. 

Probably this is the most fitting place to correct a 
certain notion which you are likely to meet in crude 
Christian thinking. God the Father and his Son, our 
Saviour, are regarded as having two very different at- 
titudes toward the salvation of men. The attitude of 
the Father is one of holy obstacle, while the attitude of the 
Son is one of eager mediation between sinners and the 
angry Father. The same feeling, if not the same idea, 
is repeated in the Roman Catholic conception of the 
mediation of the Virgin Mary. As it is in Chaucer’s 
verse, ‘‘Gracious maid and mother, help that my Father 
be not wroth with me.” It is exceedingly important that 
this notion, and especially this feeling, about God the 
Father should be crushed out of Christian life. For it is 
false through and through. The moral obstacle to super- 
ficial pardon is equally in every Person of the Trinity. 
Not only so, but the plan of redemption zs primarily with 
the Father. He it was who gave his only-begotten Son. 
The Father’s plan was confirmed by the Son in obedience 
and self-sacrifice, and again confirmed by the swift and 
silent redemptional response of the Holy Spirit. Even 
Jonathan Edwards has not, at this point, quite gained the 
New Testament accent. It is true, however, that every 


502 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


Christian heart in full health has, must have, a peculiar 
love for Jesus Christ; but this peculiar love has no neces- 
sary relation to the origin of the plan of redemption; 
rather does the love grow out of the four facts that the © 
Son of God in his self-sacrifice became man to redeem us, 
that he actually did redeem us by his death, that in 
conversion we are united to him, and that he remains 
man, ‘our Elder Brother,’’ forever. 

11. An additional word can now be given concerning 
the tdérn¢, or personal peculiarity, of each Person in 
the Trinity. The peculiarity of the Father is that of 
origination. Not only is he the causal source of the divine 
organism, but also his will is original and supreme. It is 
his will that we refer to in the discussions of Christian 
theism. It is his will that springs the worlds into ex- 
istence and binds them into harmony in their majestic 
courses. When we speak of ‘‘God”’ without qualification 
we always mean the Sovereign Father. His will is con- 
firmed, doubly confirmed, but it 1s his will that 1s confirmed. 
Philosophically a Trinitarian is as rigidly monotheistic — 
as any Unitarian can be, or even as any deist ever was, 
and as well prepared for any problem in theism. 

The peculiarity of the Son of God is that of personal 
obedience. Here we need to be intensely attentive, or 
we will not get the idea truly. This obedience is active, 
personal, self-assertive obedience. It is full of humility, 
but the humility never flings the Person into effacement. 
Notice the ring of authority and dominion: “I will draw 
all men unto me.” ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you.” 
“The Son of man shall come in his glory.” The fact is — 
that nothing can be more tremendously aggressive than 
the will of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God. 

Even more difficult is it to understand perfectly the 
personal combination of quality in the Holy Spirit. His 
peculiarity is that of personal self-effacement. His obedi- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 503 


ence is nct obedience merely, not loving obedience 
merely, but personal effacement in obedience. I despair 
of making this divine principle of voluntary, eager self- 
effacement real and sublime to an age which refuses even 
to try to understand Saint Paul’s inspired conception of 
a Christian home; and I will make no endeavor to do so. 
An intimation, though, is necessary for the completeness 
of my Trinitarian message. What we may term the 
organic peculiarity of the Holy Spirit is that he is as 
subordinate to the Son of God as he is to the Father; but 
his personal peculiarity is the wonderful way in which, 
in moral love, he treats this organic limitation. He takes 
hold of it with enthusiastic assent, he transfigures it, he 
turns it into his everlasting rejoicing. Not only so, but 
also instead of obeying by an aggressive self-assertion, he 
actually obeys by self-effacement. Of men, for instance, 
the Holy Spirit wants nothing for himself. He wants us 
only to belong to Christ, only to serve Christ, only to love 
Christ supremely. If your consciousness is totally oc- 
cupied with love for your Saviour, the whole longing of 
the Holy Spirit is satisfied. He for himself wants nothing, 
excepting the infinite love of the Father and of the Son. 
He rejoices not in obedience, but in that particular kind of 
obedience which never blossoms into personal emolument. 
He, too, is ever urged on by the law of personal expression, 
but he expresses all he is, and all he desires, in bare service 
—not service and something—not service and a universe— 
not service and a final kingdom—the Spirit of God ex- 
presses himself simply and totally in service. And what 
a service, what a service it is! Whether God will send 
a river flowing to the sea, or will set a sunset blazing in 
the western cloud, or will quiet the fears of a terrified 
child, or will break the proud heart of a sinner, or will 
unite a willing man to Jesus Christ, or will add a further 
grace to the triumphs of a saint, or will pour the sur- 


504 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


prising consolations of heaven into a hopeless grief, or 
will take an old man who is timid before the gathering 
mystery of death and fill his soul with the peace of God 
and the certainties of faith—the work, the finishing vo- 
\ition, the efficient eventualization of it all is given over 
to the Holy Spirit—he alone is sent! 


THe Morar LOVE OF THE TRIUNE GoD 


This, the moral love of the Triune God, is our last 
theme, our last work together in this system of doctrine! 

First of all, I want you to get the entire force, and the 
inner spirit, of that conception of the love of God as the 
love of a solitary Infinite Benevolence, a conception 
’ which is now apparent almost everywhere in the Christian 
church, and which is almost certain to become dominant. 
I have, therefore, selected two typical passages for quo- 
tation, choosing one passage for its spirit and the other 
passage for its meaning. Professor Ritschl, in his finest 
ad hominem manner, says: “‘In a certain quarter of theo- 
logical speculation we are met by the principle that per- 
fect love requires the similar mutual relation of two 
personal wills. In so far as love is the principle of per- 
fect fellowship between two personal beings, this may be 
true. But the perfect love, as motive power and guiding 
principle of the individual will, is independent of respon- 
sive love (Matt. 5. 46); on the contrary, just there, where 
it meets with no answering love, perfect love proves in 
every possible case its peculiar sublimity.”’ 

The other passage comes from W. L. Walker’s remark- 
able book, The Spirit and the Incarnation, and reads as 
follows: “It is often argued that the love that God is 
must eternally produce an object to which it can impart 
itself, and from which it must be eternally reflected back 
again. It is thus that some theologians have argued for 
the existence of a Divine Son of God, and for what has 





THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 505 


been termed a ‘social Trinity’. But this, if the love is not 
to be a mere self-love, would imply such a distinct and 
separate person in the Son as would be wholly incon- 
sistent with the unity of the Divine Being, and as would 
even savor of the mythological. This is not the inference 
which we seek to draw from the existence of God as love. 
The scriptural doctrine is that God 1s love, and ‘the Son’ 
must be that same love in one mode of its existence. The 
love that God is is not merely ‘the affection of one person 
for another,’ as of individuals, but that holy, universal, 
infinite love which forever seeks to impart itself, and 
which causes all persons to arise. The Son is that love 
as it goes forth to impart itself to others conceived in the 
divine image. The Son in God is thus at once the ideal 
and the potency of the creation. The perfect love that 
God is, just because it is perfect love, can never keep 
itself to itself, but must be eternally giving itself and 
going forth creating.” 

Professor Ritschl (to take up the less important quo- 
tation first), it seems to me, forces the Saviour’s meaning 
out of shape. Our Lord does not mean that the sublimest 
love has no desire for response, but rather that such love 
can and should be a motive when there is no response, and 
even in the face of hatred. There is something lofty in 
loving an enemy, but there is nothing lofty in being 
content with the enmity. And, yet deeper, to love an 
enemy requires a moral love, and, in the very nature of 
moral love, it craves an answer of moral love. Then, 
coming to God himself, it is not true that he ‘maketh 
his sun to rise on the evil’? because he is indifferent to 
response. He treats /is enemies as he does because he 
wants them to drop their enmity and love him in return. 
I will deny the whole contention that the highest kind of 
love is independent of response. On the contrary, I 
believe that the more nearly perfect, the more nearly 


506 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


divine the love is, the more one suffers, out of sight, if 
there be no response. How, then, is a love asking for 
response to be protected from mere selfishness? The 
answer is ready: By moral quality. 

To the teaching (as I grasp it) of the second quotation, 
I have three objections which are strong and unyielding: 

1. Inasmuch as this view of the love of God grants the 
preéxistent Son of God neither self-decision nor self- 
consciousness, it would in our thinking entirely destroy 
that ethical quality of self-sacrifice on the part of the 
Son in his Incarnation, a self-sacrifice which is clearly 
taught by Saint Paul, and which is vital to any really 
Christian conception of redemption. Urge and reurge 
this point I will upon the church, for it concerns the total 
practical efficiency of Christian preaching. 

2. Carried out in consistency, this view of the love of 
God certainly means either one or the other of two things: 
Either, first, that an impersonal ‘“‘seed”’ or potency of 
Deity so develops under temporal conditions as to become 
personal—in which case there is now personal duality in 
the Godhead (the Father and the Son Jesus Christ), and 
the old problem of divine unity must be faced and an- 
swered by the very men who object to the Athanasian 
solution—or, second, that our Saviour is but a man, or 
at the most a personal creature, having in his nature a 
depostt of Deity; in which case the outcome is nothing 
other than Unitarianism, essentially akin to that kind of 
Unitarianism (James Freeman Clarke) which regards 
Christ as “divine by peculiar endowment.” That the 


second theological option is the one likely to be taken I © 


have been convinced by much observation, and especially 
by a study of the effects of the Ritschlian movement 
upon American and British theology. 

3. A divine love which ‘“‘can never keep itself to itself, 
but must be eternally giving itself and going forth creat- 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 507 


ing,”’ amounts, precisely, I think, to that “infinite and 
eternal craving to create’’ which so often comes to the 
fore in the pantheistic philosophy. Under the terms of 
such a view there could be in creation neither beginning 
nor end, for the entire motive of creation is love as an 
unsatisfied attribute. Indeed, the view seems to me to 
be not only impossible in a rigidly Christian theism, but 
also out of harmony with all the fundamental Christian 
doctrines, and even inconsistent in its own structure. 
Dropping all this negative work of criticism, I will now 
give you simply and yet positively that conception of the 
love of God which I look upon as belonging to the phil- 
osophical fiber of the Christian faith. In doing this I 
have an extremely delicate preparatory task, namely, to 
make you all see and feel the deep difference between the 
motive of unsatisfied love and the motive of satisfied love. 
I am far from being sure that my modicum of literary 
skill is enough for the task; but the matter is so funda- 
mentally important that I must do what I can. There 
is many a human home where a child has been adopted 
to meet the inherent craving of a hungry heart. Some- 
times such homes are very noble, sometimes they become 
very happy; but, profoundly regarded, always they are 
abnormal and very pathetic. Right over against one of 
these abnormal homes I ask you to imagine another kind 
of a home, a home of the Bunsen type, where the father 
and the mother and all the children are tenderly and 
usefully and unselfishly entangled in a love well-nigh 
boundless. Now, this home—all of them—adopts a waif, 
let us say. Are any of you able to discover any deep 
difference between the two cases of adoption? There zs 
a deep difference. In the one case, the motive is an un- 
satisfied love—the home needs the child. In the other case, 
the motive is a satisfied love—the child needs the home. 
Now I will try to gather up into more definite point 


508 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


my entire view of God’s relation to creation. Searching 
for creation-motive, I find that there are in the divine 
life three main features which are to be considered : First, 
there is the feature of personality. As I have said in 
various ways, personality likes to create, is eager to ex- 
press the inner secret. Because of this intrinsic personal 
eagerness, there is divine motive to outplace objects of 
actual expression. But this motive is purely personal, 
and very unlike the “unfolding instinct” of pantheism ; 
for the will of God is not driven into creation. God creates 
because he would and not because he must. Again let me 
borrow Martensen’s fine thought, the creation is a “ super- 
fluity” for God. God has joy in the cosmos, but God 
does not need the cosmos. Neither personality nor any 
divine attribute gets, in creation, any new fullness. You 
cannot do any thoroughly Christian thinking until you 
lay fast hold of the idea that our God is eternally perfect 
and so self-sufficient. He is not an infinite craving end- 
lessly striving to satisfy his own nature and fill out the 
underlying plan of his own being. Second, there is the 
feature of moral concern. This second feature must be 
quickly added to the first. It is inherent for personality 
to want to get out into expression, but this inherent desire 
is much more urgent in moral personality. Moral concern 
mightily longs to spring into cosmic fact. The philosophy 
of this is partly in the nature of righteousness itself and 
partly in the way moral concern vitalizes personality. 
Now, therefore, we have in mind another range of divine 
motive. Personality alone is enough to explain a van- 
ishing universe of things, continents, and daffodils tossing 
in the breeze, and all that; but to explain, to show motive 
for a final, everlasting universe with men and angels and 
archangels, we need to begin with personality and come 
on swiftly to God’s moral concern. Third, there is the 
feature of moral love, But we cannot stop with moral 


ee eee ee 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 509 


concern. To obtain a Christian conception of the final 
universe, we must think of personality and moral concern 
as culminating in the one divine motive of moral love. 
_ In other connections and at differing angles in meaning 
_ and emphasis, I have spoken of the final universe, and 
probably I have left the impression that our extreme 
point of emphasis should be that the final universe must 
express the holiness of God as culminating through moral 
concern in moral love. To correct this impression, I 
have been waiting for this very place. My full view is that 
the final universe is to manifest, in finite measure, the 
entirety of God’s life. To do so much, the final universe 
must express, not merely the fact of God’s moral love, 
but additionally the fact that this divine love is a satts- 
fied moral love. What doI mean by this? I mean that 
the final universe will come to climax in perfect sainthood 
—in personal moral creatures who have, in their freedom, 
been made perfect in storm and pain and test. Freedom 
was granted them simply because there is no other process 
under which a finite being can become morally like God. 
Because of this climax of sainthood, every other feature 
of the final universe takes on its last touch of significance. 
What, then, is God’s relation to this sainthood? That of 
Creator with the motive of a satisfied love. Forever will 
it be evident that these saints were created, not because 
God needed them to moderate his own craving for love; 
but because, out of the eternal fullness of a satisfied love, 
God wanted them to bring their little cups of finite pos- 
sibility and fill them with everlasting joy out of his 
shoreless ocean. Thus the very law of expression itself 
becomes at last more than merely personal, even more 
than merely personal and moral—it becomes absolutely 
altruistic. 

One last look at the new race, and our work is done. 
Not yet, in this immediate discussion, have we provided 


510 THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 


for the finite expression in the final universe of the en- 
terety of the life of God. For we made no provision for 
the expression of the absolute personal organism of the 
Godhead. Do you not see what we need as our ultimate 
feature? We again need the new race in Jesus Christ. 
The cosmic sweep of the kingdom of God will manifest 
the divine holiness as personalized in moral concern. The 
kingdom of heaven will manifest the satisfied love of God 
as benevolent motive. But the kingdom of our Lord will 
express more—it will express the love of God—moral and — 
satisfied—in a personal organism which will be a finite 
copy of the unity of the Persons of the Trinity, and will 
have a racial imitation of the glory of their inter-com- 
munion. 


“Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also 
that believe on me through their word; that they may all 
be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
they also may be in us: that the world may believe that 
thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast 
given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, 
even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they 
may be perfected into one; that the world may know that 
thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst 
me. Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, 
where I am, they also may be with me; that they may 
behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou 
lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” 


And now unto the God of our redemption, unto the 
Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, do 
we ascribe all power and all dominion and all glory, 
world without end, Amen and Amen, 





PAGE 


7 


Io 


TiI-13 


17 


— 


20 


20 


23 


a7 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


I. THE MAN AND THE ANIMAL 


Charles Morris, Man and His Ancestor, chap. viii. The 
Macmillan Co., rgoo. 


Haeckel, Die Weltrathsel, kap. xiii, the McCabe trans- 
lation. Harper, 1901. One hundred and fifty thousand 
copies sold in Germany alone. See Hibbert Journal for July, 


1905, P- 741. 


The quotation from Darwin. See Man and His Ancestor, 
p. 14. Also Descent of Man, p. 154, revised edition. Appleton, 
1902. Mr. Darwin says: ‘If the above explanation is cor- 
rect, as seems probable, the direction of the hair on our 
own arms offers a curious record of our former state; for no 
one supposes that it is now of any use in throwing off the 
rain; nor, in our present erect condition, is it properly directed 
for this purpose.” 


As to God’s relation to the world, compare with state- 
ment on pp. 147, 148. 


II. PERSONALITY 


Spencer’s Facts and Comments. Appleton. Preface writ- 
ten in March, 1902. See p. 12. 


Hegel’s statement in his Philosophie der Religion (i, 64) 
is this: ‘“‘Ich bin nicht einer der im Kampf begriffenen, 
sondern ich bin beide KAampfende und der Kampf selbst.” 


“The crushed worm.”’ See the Clark edition of the Micro- 
cosmus, i, 250. 


Fife ponies. See article by Kellogg Durland in Black- 
wood’s Magazine, January, 1902. 
Julius Miiller, Lehre von der Stinde, i, 32. 
Ill. THE Morat PERSON 


The best discussion of the characteristics of the dog may 
be found in chap. xvi of Romanes’s work on Animal Intel- 
ligence. Appleton, 1897. 


512 


PAGE 
29-31 


48 


51 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


“The institution of taboo.’’ Frazer's article in the En- 
cyclopedia Britannica, xxiii, 15. Jevons’s Introduction to 
the History of Religion, chaps. vi, vii, and viii. Methuen, 
1902. Andrew Lang’s Magic and Religion, chap. xiv. 
Longmans, rgot. 


IV. FREEDOM, PERSONAL AND MORAL 


Jonathan Edwards’s conception of the “strength of a 
motive’’ is to be found on p. 8 of his Inquiry, London edition, 
1831. 


James M’Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government, p. 
271. New York, 1856. 


Robert Browning, Saul, xviii. 


The Methods of Ethics. Macmillan, 1901. The entire 
fifth chapter is of importance. Especially note the follow- 
ing passage (pp. 74, 75): ‘‘It is sometimes vaguely thought 
that a belief in Free Will requires us to maintain that at any 
moment we can alter our habits to any extent by a suffli- 
ciently strong exertion. And no doubt most commonly 
when we make such efforts, we believe at the moment that 
they will be completely effectual. We will to do something 
hours or days hence with the same confidence with which we 
will to do something immediately. But on reflection, no 
one, I think, will maintain that in such cases the future act 
appears to be in his power in the same sense as a choice of 
alternatives that takes effect immediately. Not only does 
continual experience show us that such resolutions as to 
the future have a limited and too frequently an inadequate 
effect, but the common belief is really inconsistent with the 
very doctrine of Free Will that is thought to iustify it; for 
if by a present volition I can fully determine an action that is 
to take place some hours hence, when the time comes to do — 
that act I shall find myself no longer free. We must there- 
fore accept the conclusion that each such resolve has only a 
limited effect, and that we cannot know when making it how 
far this effect will exhibit itself in the performance of the 
act resolved upon. At the same time it can hardly be de- 
nied that such resolves sometimes succeed in breaking old 
habits: and even when they fail to do this, they often sub- 
stitute a painful struggle for smooth and easy indulgence.” 


““A recent book.’’ Professor Frank Thilly’s Introduction 
to Ethics, p. 334. Scribner, rgoo. 





DAGE 


52: 


53 


54 


56 


65 


69 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 513 


“The sternum in poultry.’ The Life and Letters of 
George John Romanes. Longmans, 1896. Letter to Mr. 
Darwin dated November 7, 1875, p. 45. 


Professor Wundt, The Principles of Morality, p. 39. Swan 
Sonnenschein & Co., rgor. 


Professor Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry 
Huxley, vol. i, pp. 352, 353. Appleton, 1901. Compare 
with passage in Collected Essays, i, 163. 


Professor Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 
p- 243. Harper, 1897. See also Professor Bowne’s discus- 
sion of ‘“‘Freedom and Necessity”’ in part iii of his Meta- 
physics, revised edition; and the chapter on ‘Will and 
Action” in part i of his Introduction to Psychological 
Theory. 


V. Persona MoRALITY 


For a sufficient discussion of ‘‘the categorical imperative”’ 
see chap. xiv of Kant, by William Wallace, Blackwood’s 
Philosophical Classics. 


John Caird. The quotation is from the Croall Lecture for 
1878-79, chap. ix, 291. 


The translation of the line from Homer is by Max Miller. 


VI. RELIGION 


John Stuart Mill. Read his entire essay on Nature. 


The quotation from Edward Caird’s The Evolution of 
Religion is more largely given on p. 78. 


Samuel Johnson. Boswell says: ‘‘ He had another particu- 
larity, of which none of his friends even ventured to ask an 
explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, 
which he had contracted early, and from which he had never 
called upon his reason to disentangle him, This was his 
anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage by a certain 
number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that 
eith2r his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) 
should constantly make the first actual movement when he 
came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture; for I 
have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly 
stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnest- 
ness; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of 


514 


PAGE 


84 


85 
86 


88 


98 


98 


99 


100 


107 


108 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put him- 
self in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having 
gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly 
on, and join his companion.’’ The edition in Macmillan’s 
Library of English Classics, i, 357. 


‘‘The folklore of Brittany.’’ See Dealings with the Dead. 
London, Redway, 1898. It comprises selections from La 
Légende de la Mort en Basse Bretagne. 


Fichte, Ethik, i, 23, quoted by Mulford. 


Professor James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 
p. 34. Longmans, 1go2. 


Professor Seth. There is nowhere a more penetrating dis- 
cussion of Hegel’s philosophy in its relation to personality 
than is to be found in the last two lectures of Andrew Seth’s 
Hegelianism and Personality. ss 


VII. THe TuHetstic ARGUMENT 


Democritus. See Ferrier’s Lectures on Greek Philosophy, 
the lecture on the ‘‘ Atomic School.” 


For a criticism of Mill’s explanation of the origin of the 
cosmos see Dr. Miley’s Systematic Theology, i, 82-85. 


For the bearing of modern scientific study upon theism 
read the little book by John Fiske called The Idea of God as 
affected by Modern Knowledge. 


Professor Everett’s book (Macmillan, 1902) is one of the 
most suggestive discussions of the last ten years. See p. 164. 


VIII. REVELATION 


Herbert Spencer’s last fragment published, in Facts and 
Comments, is on ‘‘ Ultimate Questions.’’ The intense gloom 
of the fragment is manifest in this passage: “ But it seems 
a strange and repugnant conclusion that with the cessation 
of consciousness at death there ceases to be any knowledge 
of having existed. With his last breath it becomes to each 
the same thing as though he had never lived.” 


In his essay on ‘‘Nature” Mill says: ‘In sober truth, 
nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned 
for doing to one another are nature’s everyday perform- 
ances. . . . Nature impales men, breaks them as if on 
the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, 


ee eer rrr 


PAGE 


108 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 515 


burns them to death, crushes them with stones like the 
first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes 
them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow ven- 
om of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hid- 
eous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a 
Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed. All this Nature 
does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and 
of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest 
indifferently with the meanest and worst; upon those who 
are engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and 
often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts; and it 
might almost be imagined as a punishment for them. She 
mows down those on whose existence hangs the well-being 
of a whole people, perhaps the prospects of the human race 
for generations to come, with as little compunction as those 
whose death is a relief to themselves or a blessing to those 
under their noxious influence.” 


“A certain journalist.’’ Editorial on ‘‘Increase of Joy” 
in Harper’s Weekly, November 14, 1903. 


IX. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AND THE MorRAL PERSON 


120 


12I 


126 


131 


Professor J. R. Seeley, the author of Ecce Homo. His 
book Natural Religion is almost as important as the work 
which made him famous. 


Adolf Harnack. ‘Die Predigt Jesu wird uns auf wenigen, 
aber grossen Stufen sofort in eine Hohe ftthren, auf welcher 
ihr Zusammenhang mit dem Judentum nur noch als ein 
lockerer erscheint, und auf der tiberhaupt die meisten Faden, 
die in die ‘Zeitgeschichte’ zurtickftihren, unbedeutend wer- 
den.’’—Das Wesen, i, to. 


Das Wesen des Christentums. Leipzig, 1900. Transla- 
tion by Thomas Bailey Saunders, What is Christianity? sec- 
ond edition. Putnam,1g902. There are two strong replies to 
Harnack’s book: a conservative reply by Professor Hermann 
Cremer, and a rationalistic reply by Abbé Loisy. The latter 
has been translated into English, and may be found in the 
introduction to The Gospel and the Church. Scribner, 1904. 


X. Tue CurisTIAN RELIGION AND THE HUMAN RacE 


Emerson. An article on ‘‘The Personality of Emerson,” 
by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in the Outlook, May 23, 
1903. The passage almost entire is as follows: ‘‘It is not the 
sea and poverty and pursuit that separate us. Here is Alcott 


516 


PAGE 


132 


148 
155 


160 


161 


161 


163 


163 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


by my door—yet is the union more profound? Noi the sea, 
vocation, poverty, are seeming fences, but man is insular and 
cannot be touched. Every man is an infinitely repellent 
orb, and holds his individual being on that condition. . . 
Most of the persons whom I see in my own house I see across 
a gulf; I cannot go to them, nor they come to me.” Com- 
pare with Emerson’s essay on “‘Self-reliance.”” 


Thomas Arnold (the younger). From an article in the 
Century Magazine, May, 1903. 


XI. CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY 


This discussion has been worked out from starting points 
which I gained, strangely enough, from the two antipodal 
men, Dr. Fr. H. R. Frank and Professor Albrecht Ritschl. 


“‘One system.’’ Compare with what is said on pp. 11-13. 


“Christianity taken by hazard.’ The quotation is taken 
from the book The Rational Basis of Orthodoxy, by Dr. 
Albert Weston Moore. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901. See 
the first chapter, on ‘‘The Rationality of Faith.” 


XII. Tue CuristiAN Book 

Professor Sanday’s university sermon is given as an 
appendix to his Bampton Lectures on Inspiration. 

Professor Huxley’s Hume, English Men of Letters Series, 
part ii, chap. vii. 

Professor Wellhausen’s Sketch, originally published in 
the Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. xiii, and then published 
as a monograph by Adam and Charles Black. 

“The Recession of Miracle.’”’ The editorial is to be found 
in the Independent, December 4, 1902. 


Cardinal Newman, Oxford University Sermons, sermon 
x, on ‘‘Faith and Reason, Contrasted as Habits of Mind.” 





The present tendency to “‘reduce the miracle’’ is referred 
to by Matthew Arnold in this way: ‘‘To reduce the mirac- 
ulous in them [the Bible miracles] to what are thought 
reasonable dimensions is now a favorite attempt. But if 
anything miraculous is left, the whole miracle might as well 
have been left: if nothing, how has the incident any longer 
the proving force of a miracle? Let us treat so absurd an 


attempt as it deserves. Neander supposes that the water — 





tt ae re 


PAGE 


183 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 517 


at the marriage feast at Cana was not changed by Jesus into 
wine, but was only endued by Jesus with wine’s brisk taste 
and exhilarating effects. This has all the difficulties of the 
miracle, and only gets rid of the poetry. It is asif we were 
startled by the extravagance of supposing Cinderella’s fairy 
godmother to have actually changed the pumpkin into a 
coach and six, but suggested that she did really change it 
into a one-horse brougham.’’—God and the Bible, chap. i, 
SEC. 4. 


Professor Paul W. Schmiedel, Professor of New Testament 
Exegesis, Ziirich. See his article on “Gospels” in the Ency- 
clopedia Biblica, vol. ii. 


XIII. Systematic THEOLOGY 


In this connection I wish to quote a most significant pas- 
sage from Dr. Abraham Kuyper’s discussion of the ‘‘ Liberty 
of Scientific Theology”: ‘‘Hence there is no question of 
desiring to free the theologian as such at the bar of his own 
conscience from his obligation to his subject, his principium, 
or the historic authority of the church; what we should object 
to is that the study should be prevented from pursuing its 
own way. That a church should forbid a minister of the 
Word the further use of her pulpit when he antagonizes her 
confession, or that a board of trustees should dismiss a pro- 
fessor, who, according to their view, does not serve the end 
for which he was appointed, has nothing whatever to do 
with this liberty of studies. A shipowner, who dismisses a 
captain because he sails the ship to a different point of 
destination from what the shipowner designated, in no wise 
violates thereby the personal rights of the captain. When 
a church appoints a minister of the Word, she and she alone 
is to determine what she desires of him, and when he is no 
longer able to perform this, she can no longer retain him in 
her service. And in the same way, when the curators of a 
university appoint some one to teach Lutheran dogmatics, 
and this theologian meanwhile becomes Romish, it is not 
merely their right but their duty to displace him. Yea, 
stronger still, a theologian who, in such a case, does not 
withdraw is dishonest, and as such cannot be upheld. But 
these cases have nothing to do with the liberty of studies, 
and at no time does the churchly liberty of the theologian 
consist of anything but his right to appeal to the Word of 
God, on the ground of which he may enter into a spiritual 
conflict with his church, and if he fails in this, to withdraw, 


518 


PAGE 


192 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


Thus when the liberty of theology is spoken of, we do not 
mean theology as attached to any office, but theology as an 
independent phenomenon. The question simply is, whether, 
after it has separated itself from this office, and thus makes 
its appearance as theology only, it is or is not free. And the 
answer is that every effort to circumscribe theology by any 
obstacle whatever is antagonistic to her nature, and disables 
her for her calling. The law of thought will not allow you 
to call the thing black which you see to be white.’’—Ency- 
clopedia of Sacred Theology, pp. 594, 595, the De Vries 
translation from the Dutch. Scribner, 1898. 

In a time when ‘‘mental reservation” is making meaning- 
less so much public subscription to doctrine, these unequiv- 
ocal words from Dr. Kuyper are exceedingly wholesome. 
And yet he does not seem to be aware of the extreme com- 
plication of the present theological situation. Oftentimes 
the church to which a theologian belongs is itself far from 
being a consistent unit in theological trend and interpreta- 
tion; and the man stays in place, not because he is dishonest, 
but because there is no clear indication of duty. Dr. Kuy- 
per’s distinction, however, between theology and theology 
as attached to an elective office is of the greatest importance. 


XIV. Tue CREATION AND FALL OF MAN 


‘The primitive style of narration.”” Taken from a lecture 
delivered by President W. R. Harper, of the Chicago Univer- 
sity, reported in the Standard, and this report then sum- 
marized in the Independent. His view is of so much worth 
to me that I will quote more largely and from the summary: 
“‘What Genesis really teaches is that man exists as a crea- 
tion of God, that he received a nature superior to that of all 
other animals, that he is in the image of God in his spiritual 
nature. What portion of the narrative is to be taken literally 
it is difficult to say. The account is not an allegory nor a 
myth nor a mere legend or tradition; it is an historical fact 
revealed by God to the first men and preserved in the primi- 
tive style of narration characteristic of the age in which it was 
written. He says the Eden story was intended to make 
known the fact that evil in the world had its origin in dis- 
obedience to the divine command. The account is historical, 
but, as in other cases, is given in the narrative form. While 
it is so referred to in the New Testament that we must accept 
it as describing a real event, still it is not to be read or under- 
stood in the method of bald literalism. Man fell into sin by 
yielding to temptation and thus forfeited that which had 





— 


= 


PAGE 


195 


200 


200 


211 


211 


212 


224 


229 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 519 


been originally provided for him, and brought not only upon 
himself but upon his posterity the curse of evil in its various 
forms. He failed under the trial to which his Creator sub- 
jected him. The description of the garden is to be held as 
ideal, grounded in tradition, but not to be taken as geo- 
graphically correct. The narrative has in this connection 
an historical basis, but makes a free use of svmbols in setting 
forth the historical facts of the first sin and its consequences.” 


Bishop Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, sec. 59, p. 114. 


XV. THE DoctRINE oF SIN 


Bishop Foster, Sin, vol. vi of his Studies in Theology. 
Especially note pp. 33, 117, 119, 229, and 230. 


In the history of Arminian theology there is no position 
so entirely inconsistent and indefensible as that of Dr. Wil- 
liam Burt Pope on “‘hereditary guilt.’’ See his Compendium 
of Christian Theology, American edition, vol. ii, p. 48. 


XVI. THe Deity or Our LorpD 


“Five methods.’’ 1. The historical argument, as used by 
Dr. Dorner. 2. The combination argument, as used by 
Canon Liddon. 3. The scriptural argument, as used by Dr. 
Miley. 4. The argument in biblical theology. 5. The argu- 
ment based entirely upon the claims of Christ. 


“Saint John’s gospel.’”” The literature is too extensive 
for indication here; but the best recent discussion of the 
subject is by Professor George Park Fisher in chap. xi of his 
Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, revised edition. 
Scribner, 1902. 


“The kingdom of God.’”’ My view of this kingdom will 
be precisely given in my consideration of the doctrine of the 
church. 


William Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, 
Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History. See Waymarks 
in Church History, p. 65. Longmans, 1894. 


“Passage from an editorial.’’ ‘‘Who is He?” in the Out- 
look, February 15, 1902. This editorial is signed “‘L. A.” 
Compare with an editorial in the same paper, “‘The Divinity 
of Jesus Christ,’’ June 29, 1901. This editorial, however, 
is not signed. 


520 


PAGE 
230 


233 
233 


242 


249 


250 


251 


252 


252 


252 


257 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


Professor Ritschl. See chap. vi of the second edition of 
The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation. 
T. & T. Clark, 1902. The German of the quotation runs as 
follows: ‘‘Als Trager der vollendeten Offenbarung ist Christus 
gegeben, damit man an ihn glaube. Indem man an ihn 
glaubt, versteht man ihn als den Offenbarer Gottes.” 


XVII. THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF Gop 
Rothe, Dogmatik, ii, 22. 


“Only a minor matter.”’ Professor Briggs’s The Incarna- 
tion of thé Lord, p. 217. Scribner, 1902. 


Bishop Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, p. 260. 


' Professor James Orr, The Christian View of God and the 
World, second edition, pp. 322, 323- 


Canon Gifford, The Incarnation. Dodd, Mead & Co., 
1897. | Expositor, September and October, 1896. Critical 
Review, October, 1897. 


Professor Bowne. Read the entire chapter on “‘The Nature 
of Things,” in his Metaphysics. 


“In another connection.” The quotation is from an | 
article, ‘‘The Authority of Our Lord, and of the Bible to the 
Christian Man,” published in the Independent, November 
II, 1897. 

Canon Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God, p. 212. 
Scribner, 1896. 


“Two wills.”” Canon Liddon says: ‘‘ Christ has a Human Will 
as being Perfect Man, no less than he has a Divine Will as 
being Perfect God.’’—Bampton Lectures, eighteenth edition, 


p. 264. 


““The double life.” See Martensen’s Christian Dogmaties, 
p- 264. 


Proclus of Cyzicus. 
6 arog év ayKaAate ntpo¢ 
kal ’er? mreptywv avéuov—Orat. i, 9. 


Professor Briggs, The Incarnation of the Lord, sermon v. — 


XVIII. THe Hotness or Gon 
“The most striking characteristic of the Old Testament.” 





PAGE 


259 


259 


262 


266 


269 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 521 


Read the remarkable article by Professor A. B. Davidson on 
‘God (in Old Testament) ”’ in vol. ii of the Hastings Diction- 
ary of the Bible. 


Professor Sanday. In his article on ‘“‘God (in New Testa- 
ment),”’ written to complete Professor Davidson’s article. 


Mr. Lidgett. He says: “‘The Fatherhood of God therefore 
means the Father regnant. The emphasis must be laid in 
turn both upon the subject and upon the adjective. It is 
the Father who reigns. Therefore his law is a law of grace 
and love from beginning toend. Even that which is sternest 
in its nature and administration is ordained in the interests 
of love and life. And the Father is regnant; for he calls into 
existence, constitutes, and maintains a world which is 
absolutely and irrevocably controlled by his own perfection, 
and controlled in the interests of that spiritual life which 
love creates and would perfect. Love reigns, therefore, by 
law in the interests of life.’—The Fatherhood of God, chap. 
vi. T. & T. Clark, 1902. 


Professor Stevens, The Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, 
vol. ii, p. 399. 


Bishop Martensen on the wrath of God: “Though God 
eternally loves the world, his actual relation to it is not a 
relation of love, but of holiness and justice, a relation of 
opposition, because the unity of his attributes is hindered 
and restrained. There exists also a contradiction between 
the actual and essential relations of God to mankind; a con- 
tradiction which can only be removed by the destruction 
of the interposing principle of sin. The expression, the 
wrath of God, simply embodies this truth, that the relations 
of God’s love to the world are unsatisfied, unfulfilled. The 
expression is not merely anthropopathic, it is an appropriate 
description of the divine pathos necessarily involved in the 
conception of a revelation of love restrained, hindered, and 
stayed through unrighteousness.’’—Christian Dogmatics, 


sec. 157, P- 303. 


XIX. THe Mora, GovERNMENT 


Hugo Grotius, Defensio Fidei Catholicae de Satisfactione 
Christi. Basileae, 1732. There is an excellent translation 
by Dr. Frank Hugh Foster, but unfortunately it is out of 
print. 


522 


PAGE 
270 


271 


a8o0 


281 


282 


283 


284 


288 


288 


290 


292 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


Saint Paul’s conception of the law. See Professor Denney’s 
discussion in the Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii, 
P- 77- 


Dr. Dale. His view is given in lecture ix of his work on 
The Atonement. 


For a trenchant criticism of the governmental theory of 
the atonement, see Professor George Nye Boardman’s “‘ Esti- 
mate of the New England Theory” in A History of New 
England Theology. A. D. F. Randolph, 1899. 


XX. THE CHRISTIAN MEANING oF DEATH 


Walt Whitman. As I remember it, the poem was first 
published in the Century Magazine. But it has been added 
to Leaves of Grass in the Boston edition of 1897. 


Here is one more selection out of a number of modern 
poems which I have collected: 


“Do you think that I fear you, Goodman Death? 
Then, sir, you do not know; 
For your grim white face and your frosty breath, 
And your dark eyes browed with snow, 
Bring naught to me but a signal of love. 
My Father sent you; he dwelleth above, 
And I am ready to go.” 


Newman Smyth. The book was published in 1898 by 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. See p. 28. 


Professor Davidson, article on “Eschatology” in the 
Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, i, 739. 


Professor Charles. Published by Adam & Charles Black 
in 1899. See p. 353. 


Herbert Spencer. The sixth edition, Appleton, 1902. 
See p. 7o. 


Bishop Dahle, Life after Death. See p. 26 of the Bev 
eridge translation. 


Professor Charles. See p. 415 of his Eschatology. 


Professor Delitzsch: ‘‘Wie der Baum des Lebens die 
Kraft der Unsterblichkeit in so zu sagen sacramentlicher 
Weise in sich schloss.""—Neuer Commentar, Gen. 2. 16, 17. 


PAGE 


292 


292 


292 


293 


302 


311 


312 


313 


313 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 523 


Dr. Latimer. The quotation is taken from my own class- 
room notes. 


Professor Denney, The Death of Christ. Armstrong, 1902. 
See pp. 127, 128. Compare with lecture iv in his Studies 
in Theology. 


Professor Bruce. Chap. ii, especially p. 64. 


Alfred Russel Wallace, Fortnightly Review, March, 1903. 
Also the book Man’s Place in the Universe. McClure, 
Phillips & Co., 1904. 


XXI. Tue TEACHING or Saint PAu 


Professor Sanday, commentary on Rom. 3. 25. Note 
his discussion of ‘‘The Death of Christ Considered as a 
Sacrifice,” pp. 91-94. 


Professor Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament. 
part iv, chap. v, p. 378. 


. Our Lorp’s STRANGE HESITATION IN APPROACHING DEATH 


Dr. Hollmann. For a noteworthy criticism of Dr. Holl- 
mann’s view (‘‘Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu nach seinen 
eigenen Aussagen auf Grund der synoptischen Evangelien’’), 
see the Critical Review for November, rgot. 


Professor McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the 
Apostolic Age. Scribner, 1898. See note, pp. 68-70. 


“Inadequate explanations.’’ See in The Life of Jesus 
by David Friedrich Strauss, George Eliot’s translation, 
Part iii, chap. iii, sec. 125. 


Renan. ‘‘Se rappela-t-il les claires fontaines de la Galilée, 
ot il aurait pu se rafraichir; la vigne et le figuier sous lesquels 
il aurait pu s’asseoir; les jeunes filles qui auraient peut-étre 
consenti A l’aimer?’’—Vie de Jésus, xxiii, 391. 


Principal Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Christian 
Religion, book ii, part i, chap. v, sec. iv. The Macmillan 
Company, 1902. Read pp. 430-432. 


Tue RaActat THEORY OF OuR LorRD’s REDEMPTIVE WORK 


“Nor was Jesus punished.’”’ ‘‘Nor was Jesus punished for 
man’s sin, he suffered for it. He could not be punished, for 
he was not guilty. He endured no equivalent for the appro- 


524 


PAGE 


323 


333 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


priate penalty of our wrongdoing; he did something far more 
valuable. God the Father did nothing so immoral as punish 
some one in the stead of some one else. It was sinful man, 
not God, who crucified Christ. Sin did its very utmost when 
it took the life of the Son of God, but it could no further go. 
It might have taken that life in any one of a hundred ways. 
It might have hanged, or drowned, or burnt him; but it 
chose the cross, and by so doing made the cross the symbol 
of our salvation. But observe—it could not make him sin. 
Here is just the point where the death of Christ saves us.”’ 
—R. J. Campbell, in British Weekly, March 31, 1904. 


John Calvin, Institutio Christianae « Religionis, liber ii, 
caput xvi, 10. Edinburgh, 1874. 


‘A typical sinner.’’ ‘‘The Authority of Our Lord, and of 
the Bible to the Christian Man,” the Independent, Novem- 
ber 11, 1897. 


XXIV. Tue PERSONAL DISPENSATION OF THE Hoty SPIRIT 


336 


337 


339 


344 


343, 344 


352 


In a letter to Dr. Albert H. Plumb, written in 1888, Pro- 
fessor Edwards A. Park says, concerning this passage from 
the works of the ‘‘wonderful John Duncan’’: ‘‘I suppose I 
have read it forty times. I shall probably read it many times 
more. It has a great effect upon my mind.’’ See The Memo- 
rial Collection of Professor Park’s Sermons, p. 9. The Pil- 
grim Press. 


See John Fletcher’s ‘Portrait of Saint Paul,”” p. 170, 
part ii, vol. iii, New York edition of his works. 


Professor Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, vol. i, 
p. 279. T. & T. Clark, 1895. 


Justin Martyr, The Antenicene Fathers, American reprint 
of the Edinburgh edition, vol. i, p. 164. 


Dean Mansel. See his comment on Saint Matt. 12. 31, 32, 
in The Bible Commentary (Speaker's). 


Also read the article on ‘‘Blasphemy”’ in the Hastings 
Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i, p. 305. 


XXV. Tue PREPARATION FOR CONVERSION 


““Wesley’s phrase.” ‘‘The inward, spiritual meaning of the 
law of God now begins to glare upon him.”-—Sermon IX, on 
‘““The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption.” 


PAGE 


355 


356 


359 


362 
363 


363 


366 


367 


372 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 525 


XXVI. CoNVERSION 


“Now faith is assurance.’ See Professor A. B. David- 
son’s Handbook on Hebrews. 


‘‘Great saint.” In his Apologia pro Vita Sua Cardinal 
Newman writes (p. 4): ‘‘In isolating me from the objects 
which surrounded me, in confirming me in my mistrust of 
the reality of material phenomena, and making me rest in 
the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously 
self-evident beings, myself and my Creator...” 


The best discussion of Saint James’s conception of faith 
as over against Saint Paul’s conception of faith is to be 
found in the introduction to Professor Joseph B. Mayor’s 
commentary on The Epistle of Saint James. Macmillan, 


1897. 
Cardinal Newman, Lectures on Justification, iii, 8. 


“Dr. Latimer’s definition.’”’ Taken from my notebook of 
1879. 


Professor Sanday. Read his entire discussion beginning 
on p. 34 of the commentary on Romans. 


Dr. Ball. Saint Paul and the Roman Law, by W. E. Ball, 
LLD. T. & T. Clark, roor. 


The witness of the Spirit. Read chaps. viii, ix, and x in 
Professor Beet’s The New Life in Christ. 


XXVII. PersonaL Ho.Liness 


Concerning Dr. McClintock’s statement Professor Faulkner, 
of the Drew Theological Seminary, says: “‘I find this to be 
true: (1) The Methodists were the first Christians who offi- 
cially, and as a united body, without deviation, and with the pow- 
er of a church behind them to make tt effective, taught the New 
Testament doctrine of Christian perfection. (2) Absolutely 
they were not the first to teach it. Not speaking of indi- 
viduals in the ancient and medieval church, the Arminians 
taught the doctrine. But they were not a united and respon- 
sible church in the same sense that the Methodists were, nor 
did they continue to maintain the doctrine in a living way. 
The Friends also taught it. Elsewhere I say: George Fox’s 
‘ opinion on Christian perfection is exactly similar to Wesley's, 
excepting that he did not emphasize any special work of 
sanctification, but said that faith in Christ would save from 
all sin.’ But the Friends are not a church at all in the New 


526 


PAGE 


374 


376 


387 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


Testament sense, much less in the ordinary Protestant sense; 
and besides, they are broken up into schools, one of which 
is almost, if not quite, rationalistic.” 


The quotations from John Wesley are, as a rule, taken 
from the London edition, 1829-31, in fourteen volumes. 


The expression ‘‘above thirty years’”’ should, I think, be 
“about thirty years.” 


Professor Bartlet, vol. iv, pp. 391-395. 


Of the many books on Christian perfection the following 
I regard as the most important: Love Enthroned, by Dr. 
Daniel Steele; Growth in Holiness toward Perfection, by 
Dr. James Mudge; Sin and Holiness, by Dr. D. W. C. Hunt- 
ington; The Story of Gottlieb, by Dr. William F. Warren; 
Thoughts on Christian Sanctity, by Bishop Moule; Christian 
Perfection, by Dr. P. T. Forsyth; The Higher Christian 
Life, by Dr. Alvah Hovey; Sanctification—Right Views and 
Other Views, by Bishop Merrill. And among the old books 
on the subject two are especially worthy of notice: John 
Fletcher’s ‘‘Last Check’’; The Philosophy of Christian Per- 
fection. A psychological study. Anonymous. Philadel- 
phia, 1848. 


XXVIII. Tue CuristiAN DocTRINE OF THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 


399 


400 


401 


408 


‘‘Progressive Orthodoxy,” chap. iv in the book; or see the 
Andover Review, August, 1885. 


Dr. Dorner. It is only justice to say that Dr. Dorner’s 
Eschatology should never be separated from his full System 
of Doctrine. 


““True Christian view.’”” Dr. Whedon says (Will, p. 349): 
““Of the Spirit oF FaitH it may be said that though it is not 
a perfect faith in Christ, yet it is a faith more or less distinct, 
recognized by the searcher of hearts and trier of the reins, 
in that of which Christ is the concrete and the embodiment. It 
may be safely assumed that if the true Redeemer were 
presented in proper correlation to that faith at the moment 
of its full existence he would be cordially accepted.” Read 
the entire chapter, ‘‘ Equation of Probational Advantages.” 


XXIX. Tue RESURRECTION OF THE Bopy 


Of the more recent articles on the resurrection of the body, 
I will name three as especially worthy of attention: 1. “Our 


PAGE 


410 


4II 


412 


415 


418 


427 


428 


429 


430 


429, 430 


NOTES ON THE TEXT ay 


Humiliation,’ in the British Weekly, January 29, 1903. 
2. “The Resurrection of the Body,’ in the Expositor, 
February, 1901. 3. ‘Resurrection,’ Hastings Dictionary 
of the Bible, vol. iv, p. 23r. 


“ Saint Paul’s analogy.’’ The best study of 1 Cor. 15 is to be 
found in The Resurrection of the Dead, by Professor William 
Milligan. j 


The Gospel of the Resurrection. Macmillan, 1898. The 
author is Bishop Westcott. See p. 155; but read the entire 
chapter ‘‘The Resurrection and Man.” The book is a most 
important contribution to the philosophy of the Christian 
faith. 


Martensen’s Christian Dogmatics, p. 461. 
XXX. Fue CuurcH or Our Lorp 


Professor Briggs. ‘‘The New Testament Doctrine of the 
Church,”’ an article in the American Journal of Theology, 
January, 1900. 


On x Cor. 15. 24-28, see the commentary by Principal 
Edwards, and also the commentary by Professor Beet, and 
also the commentary by Bishop Ellicott, to bring out a some- 
what different view. 


XXXI. THE CurIsTIAN SACRAMENTS 


“The new discussion.’”?’ See commentary on Saint Mark 
(14. 24) by Professor H. B. Swete; also Professor McGif- 
fert’s Apostolic Age, p. 68, footnote. In this note the impor- 
tant German discussions by Harnack, Spitta, and Jtilicher 
are indicated; so it is unnecessary to refer to them here in a 
separate note. 


Alfred Plummer, Master of University College, Durham. 
See vol. iii, p. 147. 


The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, chap. vii. The 
translation is from the American edition of The Antenicene 
Fathers. 


Dr. Boardman, The Church, pp. 74, 75, and or. 


In Professor C. W. Bennett’s Christian Archeology, as 
revised by Dr. A. W. Patten, we find the following (p. 454): 
“The conclusion to which the evidence leads us is that a 
large liberty has prevailed from the beginning as to the mode 


528 


PAGE 


432 


435 


439 


441 


443 


445 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


of administering the rite of Christian baptism. The root 
idea is found in the cleansing prescribed by the Jewish cere- 
monial purification, the application of water as a symbol of 
moral renewal. No stereotyped forms are given in the New 
Testament. Fundamental ideas are given, but the details 
are left to be adjusted to varying conditions. In this con- 
clusion the latest Christian scholarship concurs.’’ This 
statement seems to me to be almost but not quite fair to the 
situation. A little more emphasis should be placed upon 
trine immersion as the typical form. 


kowwvia, See the discussion by Professor J. Armitage 
Robinson in the Hastings Dictionary, vol. i, p. 461. 


XXXII. THE CuurcH MILITANT 


Bishop Lightfoot. See dissertation i (181-269) in com- 
mentary on The Epistle to the Philippians. 


Elisha Mulford’s The Nation. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
1890. A book which every preacher should master. 


“French Revolution.’’ See in the American Journal of 
Theology, October, 1901, an article by Martin von Nathusius, 
on ‘‘The Duty of the Church in Relation to the Labor Move- 
ment.”’ 


‘The church and foreign missions,’’ For Methodist opinion 
on the salvation of the heathen I make reference as follows: 
John Wesley, sermon cvi, on ‘‘ Faith,’’ London edition, vol. vii. 
John Fletcher, vol. i, p. 40, ‘‘ First Check.’”” Richard Watson, 
Institutes, ii, 445. Dr. Pope, Compendium, iii, 428. Dr. Sum- 
mers, Systematic Theology, i, 342. Dr. Whedon, Will, chap. 
xi, 343. Professor Terry, Methodist Review, May—June, 
1889. Dr. Miley, Systematic Theology, ii, 436. Dr. Ray- 
mond, Systematic Theology, ii, 316. 


XXXIII. THe CuurcH TRIUMPHANT 


‘“‘ The second coming of Christ.” Most valuable articles and 
books as follows: 


1. Articles 


By Professor Harnack on “‘ Millennium,”’ in the Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica, vol. xvi, 314. By Professor Fisher on 
“Millennium,” in McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia, vol. 
vi, 264. By Professor W. Adams Brown on “‘Parousia,” in 
the Hastings Dictionary, vol. iii, 674. By Professor R. H. 


PAGE 


450 


459 


461 


462 


477 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 520 


Charles on ‘‘Eschatology’’ (New Testament), in the Ency- 
clopzdia Biblica, vol. ii, 1372; see also his Jowett Lectures. 


2. Biblical Theology 


The Last Things, by Professor Beet. Biblical Apocalyp- 
tics, by Professor Terry; quotation from p. 455. Christian 
Doctrine of Immortality, by Professor Salmond; quotation 
from p. 440. Eschatology of Jesus, by Rev. Lewis A. Muir- 
head. Saint Paul’s Conception of the Last Things, by Rev. 
H. A. A. Kennedy. The Parousia, by J. Stuart Russell. 


3. Typical Discussions 


Premillennial Essays (of the Prophetic Conference), 
Chicago, 1879. Life After Death, by Bishop Dahle. Second 
Coming of Christ, by Bishop Merrill. Christ’s Second Com- 
ing, by David Brown, sixth edition. Christ Came Again, by 
Dr. William S. Urmy. 


Dante, “‘ Paradise,” canto xxiii. Translation by Cary. 


‘‘What a strange moment.” By John Norris, the English 
Platonist. 


XXXIV. Men OutsipEe THE NEw RAcE 


Edward White. The full title of the book is this: Life in 
Christ, A Study of the Scripture Doctrine of the Nature of 
Man, the Object of the Divine Incarnation, and the Con- 
ditions of Human Immortality. 


Another important book on Conditional Immortality is a 
work by E. Petavel, published in Paris in 1891 (Le Probléme 
de 1l’Immortalité), translation published (Stock) a year 
later. 


Also see the American Journal of Theology, January, 1900, 
for a criticism of Professor Salmond’s discussion of Condi- 
tional Immortality. 


Maurice. For Salmond’s adequate answer to Maurice see 
Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 651. 


“Theodicy.”’ See that still very valuable book, Bledsoe’s 
Theodicy, part ii, chap. iv. 


XXXV. THE ATTRIBUTES OF GoD 


Samuel Clarke and Richard Watson, Institutes, vol. i, 
Pp. 37°. 


530 


PAGE 


478 


482 


483 


483 


485 


486 


486 


NOTES ON THE TEXT 


“The attribute of omniscience.” The strongest complete 
statement of the argument for divine nescience of contingent 
events has been given by Professor L. D. McCabe. There 
are two books by him: The Foreknowledge of God (Cincin- 
nati, 1878); and Divine Nescience (New York, 1882). See 
a review of Professor McCabe in Methodist Review, January, 
1883. 


“Get rid of time.’’ See Professor Bowne’s Deems Lectures 
on Theism, pp. 186-190, and compare with the discussion of 
“Time” in his Metaphysics, pp. 164-194. 


XXXVI. THE CurisTIAN DoctTRINE OF THE TRINITY 


‘‘Bare essentiality.’’ The question here is not, What is 
essential to Trinitarian consistency? but merely, What is 
essential to any view properly termed Trinitarian? 


“Essential points of belief.’ Professor Edwards A. Park 
gives us a definition from this essential standpoint: “‘The 
Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God; the 
three are distinct from each other by a necessity of their very 
substance; neither is God without the others; and there is 
only one God.’’—The Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xxxviii, p. 335. 


Dr. W. L. Alexander, A System of Biblical Theology, vol. 
i, p. Tog. 


“‘ German philosophy.’ See Dr. Shedd’s Dogmatic Theology, 
vol. i, pp. 186, 188, for a discussion of the process of self- 
consciousness in God. My statement is not quite just, for 
there are kindred speculations further back than any German 
philosopher. 


Jonathan Edwards. This essay was published in 1880, 
with an introduction by Professor Egbert C. Smyth (see 
P- 55). In 1881 (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xxxviii, articles v 
and ix) Professor Edwards A. Park published his ‘‘ Remarks 
of Jonathan Edwards on the Trinity.” Then, in 1903, the 
Scribners published An Unpublished Essay of Edwards on 
the Trinity, with remarks on Edwards and his theology by 
Professor George P. Fisher. The claim that all the state- 
ments in the writings of Edwards on the Trinity cannot be 
harmonized does not seem to me to be well founded. What 
he did was to try to put a profounder philosophy under the 
view of Athanasius without impairing that view. 





NOTES ON THE TEXT 531 


Beyschlag. See New Testament Theology, Clark transla- 
tion, vol. i, pp. 249-255. 


“A typical statement.’’ The quotation is from Dr. W. B. 
Pope’s Fernley Lecture (1871) on The Person of Christ, p. 5. 


Athanasius. See the first chapter of Professor Levi 
Leonard Paine’s A Critical History of the Evolution of 
Trinitarianism. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1900. 


mepixopnotc. Compare with my conception of the process 
of supplement in the Racial Brotherhood. 


Professor Ritschl. See Justification and Reconciliation, 
Clark translation, p. 453. 


W. L. Walker.- The passage is to be found on p. 239. 





, 


INDEX 


Abelard, 317. . 
Absolute organism, 497. 
Adoption, 366; assurance of, 368; defined, 


ge 

Advent, second, 445. 
Age of Reason, 107. 
ayltacpoc, 387- 
Agnostic Christology, 2209. 
Agnostic eschatology, 459. 
aiavioc, 461. 
Alexander, W. L., 485. 
Altruism, in creating man, 509. 
“Analogy of Saint Paul,’ 410. 
Andover teachers, 399. 
Annihilation, 459, 468. 
Anselm, 317. i c 

_ Apocalypse and the millennium, 446. 

_ Apostolic baptism, 429. 
Archzology and baptism, 429. 
Argyll, Duke of, 306. 

_ Arianism, 225, 483. 

_ Arminian consistency, 403. 
Arnold, Matthew, 48, 122. 

_ Arnold, Thomas, 26. 

_ Arnold, Thomas, Jr., 132. 4 
Ascension of our Lord, 329; a racial deed, 


: 330. 

 Aseity, attribute, 476, 408. 

Assurance, Christian, 367; by conscience, 
368; by inference, 367; of adoption, 368. 
Also see Witness of the Spirit. 

Athanasian creed, 227. 

Athanasius, 228, 220, 472, 487, 494. 

_ Atonement, the, 328; and the death of 

7 Christ, 328; defined, 329; expresses the 
holiness of God, 326; is an absolute 
necessity, 319; means, however, to an 
end, 326; relation to utility, 327. 

Attributes of God, 474; aseity, 476; defini- 

* tion of an attribute, 474; definitive attri- 

= butes, 474; descriptive attributes, 474; 

= eternity, 476; immutability, 477; om- 

nipotence, 476; omnipresence, 477; Om- 
niscience, 478; plan of the divine attri- 

ene 06, 476 

_ Augustine, 396, 476, 495. 

_ Authority of our Lord, 249. 

& Authority of the Bible, 167; its extent, 172. 


Backsliding and Christian perfection, 381. 

Ball, W. E., 366. 

Baptism, and archzology, 429; and Chris- 
tian liberty, 429; apostolic baptism, 429; 
formula of, 428; infant baptism, 437; 
mode of, 429; relation to the Trinity, 


429. 

Baptists, the, 430. 
Banrrifa, 429. 
Bartlet, J. V., 387. 
Baovreta, 415. 


ee 







Belief, 148, 158. 

Bernard, E. P., 408. 

Beyschlag, Willibald, 488. 

Bible, the, 161; account of the creation and 
fall of man, 191, 195; an organism, 180; 
authority, 167; inerrancy, 175; inspira- 
tion, 176; miracles, 161; relation to 
science, 174. 

Biblical theology and Christian perfec- 
tion, 385. Also see Systematic theol- 


ogy. 

Biran, Maine de, 23. 

Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, 344. 

Boardman, G. D., 430. 

Bodily death, 291; and death in the natural 
world, 291; its fitness as penalty, 296; 
its meaning, 320; its moral significance, 
295; its personal significance, 295; its 
Tacial significance, 206. 

Body, human, Christian view of, 289. 

Body of the resurrection, 409, 411. 

Body, our Lord’s, after his resurrection, 


329, 411. 
Bowne, B. P., 6, 56, 242, 472. 
Briggs, C. A., 252, 415. 


Bright, William, 224. 

‘‘Broken brotherhood,” 202. 
Brooks, Phillips, 22, 130. 
Browning, Robert, 4, 6, 48, 90. 
Bruce, A. B., 286, 202. 
Brunetiére, Ferdinand, 104, 108. 
Bunyan, John, 4, 351. 

Bushnell, Horace, 104, 271, 317. 
Butler, Joseph, 130. 


Caird, Edward, 78, 82. 

Caird, John, 58, 60. 

Calvin, John, 323, 431. 

Calvinism, modified, 468. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 58, 74. 

“Categorical imperative,” 65. 

““Category of identity,” 400. 

Catholicity of the Christian church, 420. 

Causation, 97. 

Cause, idea of, 97. 

Certainty. See Christian certainty. 

Certainty and necessity, 479. 

Change in God, 477- 

Character, moral, how fixed, 49; respon- 
sibility for, 47. 

Charles, R. H., 284, 290. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 501. 

Christ, abandoned by the Father, 322; and 
church organism, 423; and heaven, 450; 
and the moral law, 214; and the new 
race, 450; a racial sinner, 321; at the 
right hand of God, 330; ‘‘catholic 
union in him,” 410; his aggressive will, 
502; his ascension, 329; his authority, 
249; his body of glory, 329, 411; his 


534 


death, 321, 424; his death an expres- 
sion of the holiness of God, 325; his 
death a racial event, 321; his deity, 211; 
his infancy, 246; his kingdom, 500; his 
manhood, 234; his obedience, 487; his 
preéxistence, 488; his racial deeds, 330; 
his resurrection, 330; his session, 329; 
his subordination, 491; his temptation, 
248; relation to the Father, 215; the 
dynamic center of the new race, 318; 
= ‘‘the Race-Man,” 213, 214, 321, 323, 
25; two wills, in what sense? 250; was 
hie punished? 321; why men love him, 
502; work of Christ in the intermediate 
state, 406; worshiped by the early 
Christians, 224. 
Christian archeology and baptism, 429. 


Christian assurance, 367. See urance. 
Also see Witness of the Spirit. 

Christian atmosphere, 348. 

Christian Book, 159. ee Bible. 

Christian certainty, 143; analysis, 151; 


definition, 158. 

Christian church. See Church. 

Christian consciousness. See Systematic 
theology. 

Christian experience, 331. 

Christian life, how tested, 388. 

Christian meaning of death, 281. 

Christian method, 137. 

Christian miracle, 166. 

Christian monism, 147. 

Christian perfection, and backsliding, 381, 
392; and biblical theology, 385; and 
conduct, 377; and growth, 370, 301; 
and individual character, 377; and love, 
378; and motive-life, 390; and sin, 378; 
and temptation, 378; and time, 378; 
and wrong motives, 390, 393; may be 
lost, 381; not sinless, 378; the name, 
377; the philosophy, 389; the teaching 
of our Lord, 388; the teaching of Saint 
John, 385; the teaching of Saint Paul, 
386; the teaching of Wesley, 374. 

Christian preacher, the, 434. 

Christian religion, 113; and human race, 
129; and man’s body, 138; and miracle, 
166; and moral love, 119; and Old Tes- 
tament, 121; and supernatural, 164; 
“essence of the Christian religion,” 
126; social in nature, 137. 

Christian sacraments, 425. 

Christian scholarship, 175. 

Christian sermon, the, 422. 

Christian unity, 424. 

Christian view, the, of death, 281; of holi- 
ness, 262; of the cosmos, 106; of the 
human body, 289; of the intermediate 
state, 401. 

Church of our Lord, 415; a machine, 418; 
and city problem, 442; and conversion, 
348; and foreign missions, 443; and 
home, 436; and kingdom, 418; and na- 
tion, 438; and preacher, 435; and social- 
ism, 441; ‘‘catholicity of the church,” 
420; ‘“‘holiness of the church,’”’ 410; 
“holy catholic church,’’ 419; member- 
ship, 420; ‘‘militant,’’ 434; i 
421; organism and Christ, 423; 
umphant,”’ 445; unity, 424. 

City problem and the Christian church, 442. 

Clarke, J. F., 27, 506. 

Clarke, Samuel, 477. 

Coleridge, S. T., 96, 182. 





INDEX 


Communion. See Lord’s Su 2 
“‘Communion of the body of Christ,” 431. 
Comte, Auguste, 83. , 

Conduct and Christian perfection, 377. 

Cone, Orello, 286. 

Conscience, analysis, 31; and Christian as- 
surance, 368; and education, 33; and 
Holy Spirit, 118; definition, 35. 

Consciousness. See Christian conscious- 


ness. 

Consistency, in Arminian theology, 403; 
in systematic theology, 492. 

Contrition, 354. 

Conversion, 353; and church, 348; and 
moral process, 350; an in- 
fluence, 3473 divine side, 361; human 
side, 353; ‘preparation for conversion,” 


347- 

Conviction of sin, 351. 

Cosmic goal of moral government, 276. 

Cosmic kingdom of God, 416. 

Cosmic process and the Incarnation, 252. 

Cosmos, and the Christian, 106; and the 
individual, 105. ; 

Creation, and Holy Spirit, 500; and Son of 
God, 500; a social act, 500; ‘‘a super- 
fluity”’ for God, 508; Bible account, roz; 
motive for creation, 193, 508; philosophy 
of creation, 500; purpose of man’s crea- 
tion, 193. 

Cremer, Hermann, 284. 

Crime, 354. 

Crozier, J. B., 96. 

Cyprian, 308. 


Dahle, L. N., 288. 

Dale, R. W., 271. 

Dera: "GaSe 8 
arwin, Charles, 7, 10, 52, 97, 283, 453. 

De Tocqueville, Alexis, 130. = 

Death, 205; and probation, 297; and sin, 
285; a racial event, 321; Bible c 
tion of death analyzed, 287; bodily 
death, 2091; bodily death and death in the 
natural world, 291; Christian meaning, 
281; conception of death in the New 
Testament, 284; conception of death in 
the Old Testament, 283; idealization of 
death, 281; non-Christian conceptions, 
281; philosophy of death, 288; ‘‘place 
of death in evolution,” 282; ceil i 
view, 291, 294; scientific view, 282; 
“‘second death,’ 284; what is death? 
288. Also see Bodily death. 

Death of Christ, 321, 424; a movement 
toward the racial goal, 327; and atone- 
ment, 328; and moral concern, 326; an 
expression of God's holiness, 325; a pro- 
Pitiation, 328; a racial deed, 330; a 
reconciliation, 328; a satisfaction to God, 
328; ‘‘our Lord's strange hesitation in 
approaching death,” 310. 

Decalogue, 278. : 

Decree, divine, as to man’s destiny, 468. 

Deism, 122, 490. 

Deity of our Lord, 211. ~ 

Delitzsch, Franz, 202, 204, 399. 

Denney, James, 182, 292, 300. 4 

Depravity, 200; defined, 206. Also see Sin. 

Design argument, 99. 7 

Destiny, and free will, 464; and divine 
decree, 468. 

dixaLoovrvn, 3°4- 











INDEX 


dixacoovvyn Geov, 305. 

dixarovy, 362. 

dixaiéw, 361. 

Dillmann, A., 283. 4 
Dispensation of Holy Spirit, analyzed, 
_ 340; explained, 340. 

Divine foreknowledge, 479. 

Divine invitation, 352. 

Dogs and conscience, 27. 

Dorner, I. A., 400, 401, 484, 486, 495. 
“Double life,’’ theory of, 252. 

06&a, 239, 277. 

Drdaseke, 418. 

Driver, S. R., 278. 

Duncan, John, 336. 

Duty, 380. 

“‘Dynamic center of the new race,” 318. 
Dynamic theory of inspiration, 177. 


Ecce Homo, 182. 
Education and conscience, 33. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 39, 486. 
ExkAnoia, 415. 

éAmiCouévav, 356. 

_ Emerson, R. W., 64, 86, 131. 
Enlightenment, 351. 
Equality in the Trinity, 404. 


Error, 55. Pails). 

‘Essential Christianity,’”’ 126. 

Eternal punishment, 467; and theodicy, 
6 


462. 
Eternity, attribute, 476. 

Ethical spirit of the New Testament, 307. 
Eucharist. See Lord’s Supper. 

Everett, C. C., 100. 

Evolution, theory of, 7-13; and death, 282. 
Exnerience, Christian, 331. 

Extent of Bible authority, 172. 


Fairbairn, A. M., 313. 

Faith, 355; and forgiveness, 332; ‘‘bare 
religious faith,”’ 358; Christian, 359; defi- 
nitions, 360; ‘‘faith in Jesus Christ,”’ 359; 
kinds, 358; moral, 358; moral religious, 
359; nature of faith, 355; ‘‘saving faith,”’ 
358; secular, 358; theistic, 350. 

Fall of man, Bible account, 191, 195. 

Family, nation, and church, 439. 

Father, God the, 407. 

Fatherhood of God, 250. 

Fear and lost men, 468. 

“Felix culpa,’ 465. 

Fellowship with Christ, 423. 

Ferrier, J. F., 16. 

Fichte, J. H., 8s. 

Filial sense in adoption, 360. 

“Final brotherhood”’ and lost men, 460. 

Final universe, and cosmic utterance, 466; 
and divine rights, 466; and God’s ideal, 
465; and involuntary service, 467; and 
lost men, 464; and moral love, 466; and 
service, 463; and service of fear, 468; 
and service of love, 468; and two kinds 
of service, 463; ‘‘Christian conception 
of the final universe,’’ 509. 

First Cause, 102. 

Fisher, G. P., 116. 

Foreign missions, 443. 

Foreknowledge of God, 479; and attribute 
of eternity, 482; and our apprehension, 
481; and our comprehension, 481; and 
theodicy, 480; and time, 482; and work 


535 


of the Holy Spirit, 480; fact and method, 
481; is intuitive, 482; is not coercive, 
479; objections, 479. 

Forgiveness and faith, 332. 

Formula of Christian baptism, 428. 

Foster, R. S., 458. 

Fourth gospel, the, authorship, 211. 

Frank, F. H. R., 144. 

Free will and destiny, 464. 

Freedom, defined, 45; error as proof, 55; 
in relation to human destiny, 464; in- 
tuitive sense of, 51; moral freedom; 46; 
personal freedom, 39; proofs, 50. 

Friendships in heaven, 440. 

‘‘Fundament of all being social,” 400. 

Henee: punishment. See Eternal punish- 
ment. 


Gethsemane, our Lord’s hesitation in, 312. 

Gifford, E. H., 285. 

Goal, racial, and death of Christ, 327. 

God, and new race, 510; aseity, 476, 408; 
definition, 475; eternity, 476; Fatherhood, 
259; holiness, 475; how satisfied, 3343 
“ideal of God,” 465; immutability, 477; 
“‘kingdom of God,” 212, 415; moral life 
of God analyzed, 272; moral love of God, 
265, 475; omnipotence, 476; omnipres- 
ence, 477; ommiscience, 478; one indi- 
vidual only, 497; one nature only, 407; 
purpose of God in redemption, 317; 
relation to creation, 508; righteousness, 
or moral concern, 475; ‘‘rights of God,” 
466; satisfaction, 328; source of life, 290: 
unity, 403; wrath, 266. 

God, the Father, 407; and redemption, 
501; as cause, 490; his peculiarity, 502. 

Godet, F., 216, 286. 

Goethe, 64. 

“‘Good Shepherd,” 212. 

Gore, Charles, 250. 

Gospel of the Resurrection, 411. 

Grace, 350. 

Grotius, Hugo, 260, 317. 

Growth and Christian perfection, 379, 291. 


Haeckel, Ernst, 9. 

Hall, John, 348. 

Harnack, Adolf, 121, 126, 427. 

‘‘Hearing of Christ,’’ gor. 

Heaven, 447; and Christ, 450; friendships 
of, 440. . 

Heaven, kingdom of, 417. 

Hell, 467. 

Hesitation of our Lord, 312. 

Heumann, 312. 

Hodge, Charles, 280, 317. 

Holiness, Christian view of, 262. 

Holiness of God, 257, 325; and atonement, 
326; in New Testament, 262; in Old 
Testament, 261; the law of holiness 
analyzed, 273; the philosophy of divine 
holiness, 263. 

Holiness of the church, 410. 

Holiness, personal. SeeChristian perfection. 

Hollmann, on Saint Mark ro. 45, 311. 

Holy catholic church, 410. 

Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit), 117, 408, 
always a person, 493; and church life, 
423; and conscience, 118; and creation, 
500; and personality, 117; and the Chris- 
tian religion, 117; his dispensation, 337; 
his dispensation analyzed, 340; his gentle 
work, 342; his moral work, 341; his 


536 


eapear 2) 02; his personality, 337; 

is quiet work, 340; his self-effacement, 
502; his test, final, 343; his test inevitable, 
342; ‘‘the sin against the Holy Ghost,” 
343; the sinner awakened by him, 351; 
the sinner convicted by him, 351; the 
sinner enlightened by him, 351; the sinner 
anvited by him, 352; <cwittens of the Holy 
Spirit,”’ 367. 

Home, the, and the church, 436. 

Homer, his underworld, 398. 

Howells, W. D., 20. 

Hugo, Victor, 26. 

Human race, 134; and Christian religion, 
120. 

Humanitarianism, 483. 

Hume, David, 97. 

Huxley, T. H., 6, 54, 161. 


Idealization of death, 281. 

Identity, law of, 409. 

ids6THG, 498, 502. 

Ignatius, 388. 

Ihmels, L., 144. 

idaotHptov, 302. 

Illingworth, J. R., 38. 

Immersion, trine, 420. 

Immortality, and Christian certainty, 454; 
and Christian hope, 453; and curiosity, 
451; and modern lethargy, 453; and 
natural desires, 451; and personality, 
451; and scientific demonstration, 454; 
and the individual, 452. 

Immutability of God, 477. 

Incarnation, the, 233; and the cosmic 
process, 252; and the death of Christ, 
247; a racial deed, 330; its central idea, 
233; its cosmic meaning questioned, 235. 

Individual goal of the moral government, 


Individual, God is one, 497. 

Individual sin defined, 206. 

Individual, the, and the cosmos, 105; and 
immortality, 452; definition of an indi- 
vidual, 490. 

Individuality of God, 497. 

Indorsement theory of inspiration, 177. 

Inerrancy of Scripture, 175. 

Infancy of Christ, 246. 

Infant baptism, 437. 

Infant salvation, 403. 

Inference, a method of assurance, 367. 

Infinite, the, roz2. 

Influence, and conversion, 347; philosophy 
of personal influence, 347. 

Influence of the church, 348. 

Inness, George, 281. 

Inspiration of the Bible, 176; dynamic 
theory, 177; indorsement theory, ey fy 
other theories, 177. 

Intercession of Christ, 330. 

Intermediate state, 305; and Christ, 406; 
and companionship with our Lord, 407; 
and heaven, 398; and Homer, 398; and 
introspection, 406; and new race, 405; 
and revelation, 406; and the resurrection, 
3098; and Wesley, 308; and work of ad- 
justment, 402; construction of the doc- 
trine, 398; its method, 406; not a second 
eect ea 309; mot a useless pause, 
39 

Intuitive, knowledge of God, 482. 

Invitation of Holy Spirit, 352. 


INDEX 


Involuntary service, 467. 
Irenicon on baptism, 430. 


ames, William, 78, 86. 
evons, F. B., 30. 
ohannine authorship, 211. 
ohn, Saint, his doctrine of love, 385; his 
teaching on heaven, 448; his teac 
on the Lamb of God, see the discussion 
of the deity of our Lord, 211. 
Johnson, Samuel, 84. 
Judgment, the mo 68. 
Jiilicher (Lord’s Supper), 427. 
Justification, 361; definitions, 363; the 
view of Saint Paul, 362. 


Kaftan, Julius, 116. 

Kahnis, C. F. A., 418. 

Kant, Immanuel, 26, 65, 85, 231. 

Kantian theory of knowledge, 231. 

KaTaAnayn, 3°3- 

Kenosis, the, 237. 

Kingdom, the cosmic kingdom of God, 416; 
the kingdom of Christ, 417, 500; the 
kingdom of Christ and the church, 418; 
the kingdom of heaven, 417; the ultimate 
kingdom of God, 417. 

Knowledge, 145, 158. 

Kolvwvia, 432. 


Ladd, G. T., 
Lamb, Saint iota ae of, 220. 
Lang, Andrew, 20. 


Langland, William, 144. 

Latimer, James E., 18, 292, 204; defini- 
tion of Ep 363; view of Lord’s 
Supper, 431, 476 

Latin fathers and the doctrine of the 
Trinity, 472. 

Law of expression, altruistic, 509. 

Law of holiness analyzed, 273. 

Law of identity, 409. 

Lecky, W. E. H., rr6. 

Liberty, Christian, and baptism, 429. 

Liddon, H. P., 251. 

Lidgett, J. S., 250. 

Life, God the source, 290; what is it? 288. 

Life in Christ, by Edward White, 450 

Lightfoot, J. Be 238, 360; on the Ci i 
ministry, 414. 

Loisy, Alfred, 2rr. 

Loneliness, personal, 133. 

Lord’s Supper, 431 

Lost men, 467; and final brotherhood, 469; 
not complete men, 469. Also see men 
outside the new race. 

Lotze, Hermann, 16. 3 

Love, and Christian perfection, 378; as an 
organizing motive, 73. 

Love of God, 475; _and the Trinity, see 
Trinity; a satisfied love, 507; as actin 
benevoleyee 504; true view, 507. 


Lowell, J. R., 140. 
Loyalty, an 
Luther, Martin, 284. 


Lycidas, 448. 


Man, Christian conception of, 289; his 
creation, ror; his fall, r95; his loneliness, 
133; his social nature, 131; the purpose 

his creation, 193; the significance of 
man in the Scripture account of his 
creation, 102. 
Manhood of Christ, 234. 


vO 





INDEX 


Mansel, H. L., 344. 

Martensen, H. L., 26, 183, 235, 252, 266, 
396, 412, 4775 

Maurice, J. F. D., 461. 

McClintock, John, 372. 

McGiffert, A. C., on Lord’s Supper, 311. 

~- bay eel eaters 46. 

Mem , church, 420. 

God's ambition, 464; created for 

universe, 463. 

Men outside the new race (or lost men), 
457, 407; and fear as a motive, 468; and 
a brotherhood, 469; and final universe 
4 

Merrill, S. M., 445. 

**Method of the intermediate state,’” 406. 

i on Romans 5. 12, 286. 

ey, John, 40, 279, 317, 477- 

Militant, church, 434. 

Mill, J. S., 66, 79, 98, 108, 146. 

Milton, John, 247, 448. 

Miracle, Christian, 166. 

Miracles of the Bible, 161. _ 

Missions, foreign, 443; motives, 444. 

Modalism, 483, 487- 

Mode of baptism, 4209. 

**Modern Christological peril,"’ 229. 

-~saem Christian, 147. 
onogenism, 135. 

Monotheism of early church, 223. 

“Mood of the Bible on death,” 286. 

Moral character, how fixed, 49; respon- 
sibility for, 47. 

Moral concern of God, 264; and the death 
of Christ, 326; origin of moral concern, 


272. 

Moral distinction, origin of, 272. 

Moral faith, 358. 

Moral government, the, 269; and moral 
law, 274; and moral requirement, 278; 
its goal, 276; its movement, 277. 

Moral ideal, the, 62, 63. 

Moral judgment, the, 68. 

Moral law, the, 269; and Christ, 214; in 
moral government, 274. 

Moral life of God, analyzed, 272. 

Moral love, and the Christian religion, 119; 
and the final universe, 466; and the 
Trinity, 494; in God, 265, 475, 504. 

Moral meaning of bodily death, 295. 

— obligation, origin of, 272. 


Moral sovereignty of God, 257. 

Morality, analysis, 63; and grace, 350; 
and religion, 74; defined, 63; formal 
morality, 59, 63; personal morality, 59, 
75; sporadic morality, 62, 63, 350. 

, 238, 497- 


, 116. 


Nation, the, and Christian church, 438. 


537 


Nature (the natural world), 79, 204; is not 
moral, 108. 

Nature of an individual, 242. 

Nature of anything, defined, 496. 

Nature of faith, 355. 

Nature of God, 497. 

Neander, 418. 

Necessity and certainty, 479. 

Necessity of atonement, absolute, 319. 

Nescience and theodicy, 480. 

Bh man in Christ,” process of building, 
346. 

Newman, J. H., 163, 190, 362. a 

“‘New race in ;” and Christ, 450; 
and the entirety of God’s life, 510; build- 
ing of, 331; characteristics of, 334; dy- 
namic center of, 318; founding of, 329; 
“‘new race in full fact,”’ 447. 

New Testament, the, its ethical spirit, 397; 
view of God’s holiness, 262. 

Nicene creed, 210. 

Nitzsch, K. L., 486. 

Notion of death in the New Testament, 


284. 
Number of the sacraments, 427. 


Obedience, and the Godhead, 500; neces- 
sity of, 500; of our Lord, 487. 

Old Testament, the, and the Christian 
religion, 121; its conception of death, 
283; its idea of God, 257; its view of 
God’s holiness, 261. 

Omnipotence of God, 476. 

Omnipresence of God, 477; practical view, 


478. 

Omniscience of God, 478; and contingent 
events, 478; argument for, 480; is in- 
tuitive, 478, 482; not acquired, 478. 
Also see Foreknowledge of God. 

dpuoovowoc, 210. 

Ordo Salutis, 345. 

Organism, an absolute organism, 497; a 
spiritual organism, 497; definitions, 496; 
organism of the Bible, 180; organism of 
the church, 421; organism of the church 
as related to Christ, 423. 

Orr, James, 236. 

Outlook, the, quotation, 230. 


Pain, 107. 
Paine, L. L., 472- 
Pantheism, 499. 
Paraclete, the, 338. 
Pascal, 16, 144. 
Paterson, W. P., 2709. F 
Paul, Saint, ‘‘analogy of Saint Paul,” 410; 
his teaching on Christ’s redemptive 
work, 300, 306, 309; on entire sanctifica- 
tion, 386; on the kenosis, 237; on the 
resurrection, 410; view of justification, 


362. 
**Peace with God,” 333. 
Peculiarity, of God the Father, 502; of 


the Holy Spirit, 502; of the Son of God, 


502. 

Penalty, 279; fitness of bodily death as 
penalty, 296; larger conception of pen- 
alty, 280. g f 

Perfection. See Christian perfection. 

meptxopnotc, 498. 

Person, the, and immortality, 451; defi- 
nition of, 496. 

Personal holiness, 391. 
perfection. 


Also see Holy Ghost. 


Also see Christian 


538 


Personal influence in conversion, 347. 

Personality, 15; and imm: ity, 451; and 
the Holy Spirit, 117. 

Pessimism, 110. 

Peter, Saint, 218. 

Phenomenon, 146. 

Phillips, Wendell, 60. 

“‘Philosophy of creation,” 500. 

Piers the Plowman, quotation, 144. 

TlOTLC, 359+ 

Place of Death in Evolution, 282. 

“Plan of redemption,” 254. 

Plato, 411. 

Plummer, Alfred, 428. 

Positivism, 83. 

Post-millennium, 446. 

Preacher, the Christian, 434; and the 
church, 435; qualifications, 436; signifi- 
cance, 434. 

Preéxistence of our Lord, 488. 

‘‘Preparation for conversion,” 347. 

Presumption (not faith), r4o. 

Probation, 343; and death, 207; and des- 
tiny, 464; and moral intention, gor, 402; 
the philosophical significance of it, 307. 

Proclus of Cyzicus, 252. 

Progress in doctrine, 496. 

“‘Progressive orthodoxy,”’ 400. 

“‘Proleptic view of death,” 291, 204. 

Prophets of the Old Testament and the 
idea of holiness, 262. 

P-opitiation, 328. ; 

Protestant view of the Bible, 175. 

“‘Psychology of personal holiness,’’ 380. 

Punishment. See Eternal punishment. 


Race-Man, the, 213, 214. 

Race, the, and Christianity, 137. 

Racial brotherhood, 140. 

Racial deeds of Christ, 330, 331. 

Racial event, the death of Christ, 321, 330. 

Racial goal _of moral government, 277; 
death of Christ a movement toward it, 


27. 

Raviai nexus (human body), 138. 

Racial office of session, 329. 

Racial organism, 135, 137. 

Racial significance of bodily death, 206. 

Racial sin, 202, 207. 

Racial theory of our Lord’s redemptive 
work, 316. 

Rae, John, 130. 

Rationalism, 161, 312, 337, 339, 489. 

Realism, 134. 

Reality, 145, 147. 

Reconciliation, death of Christ, 328. 

Redemption, analysis of its history, 327; 
entire plan of, 454; God’s purpose in, 
317; need of, 207; realized in the new 
man, 335; realized in the new race, 413; 
the original plan of God the Father, 501; 
Triune God revealed, 471, 510. 

Regenerate life, weakness of, 380, 390. 

Regeneration, 363; defined, 365; psychol- 
ogy. of it, 3 64. 

“‘Regions of liberty’? (Bible), 175. 

Religion, 79; analyzed, 92, 93; and mo- 
rality, 74; and the supernatural, 92; 
“*bare religion,” 8s, 3 Christian reli- 
gion, 113; consummated, 80; defined, 93; 
of love, 89, 93; of the moral person, 87, 
93; ‘‘the ultimate religion,” 93. 

Renan, on Gethsemane, 313. ; 

Repentance, analyzed, 354; final definition, 


INDEX 


355; Philosophy of, 354; provisional 
definition, 353. 

Requirement, moral, in moral govern- 
ment, 278. 

Responsibility, moral, 46. 

Restoration, 4509, 468. 

Resurrection of Christ, 329; and justifica- 
tion, 329; a 1 330. 

Resurrection of the body, 408; “‘by seed- 
process,"’ 410. 

Revelation, 103, 112. 

a (and wrong) notion of, 28; origin 
of, 272. 
ighteousness, attribute of, 475. Also see 

oral concern, 

‘‘Righteousness of God” in Saint Paul’s 
epistles, 305. 

Rights of God, and the final universe, 466, 

Ritschl, Albrecht, 131, 230, 231, 414, 504. 

Ritschlian Christology, 231. 

Ritschlian theory of knowledge, 231. 

Ritschlianism, 162, 216, 230, 252, 506. 

Robertson, Archibald, 414. 

Roman law and adoption in Saint Paul’s 
epistles, 366. 

Romanes, é. J., 52, 96, 472. 

Rothe, Richard, 233. 


Sabellianism, 483, 487. 

Sacraments, Christian, 425; their meaning, 
425, 426; their number, 427. 

Sacramentum, 427- 

Salmond, S. D. F., 446. 

Salvation of infants, 403, 405. 

Salvation of the heathen, 443. 

Sanday, William, 259, 363. 

Sartor Resartus, 58, 87. 

Satisfaction of God, 328. 

Satisfied love of God, 507. 

“Saving faith,” 359. 

ona, 238. 

Schmiedel, P. W., 175. 

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 110. 

Science and Bible authority, 174. 

Scientific view of death, 282. 

Second advent, or second coming of 
Christ, 445. 

“‘Second death,” 284. 

Second probation, 343, 459- 

Seeley, J. R., 104, 120, 182. 

Self-assertion of the Son of God, 502. 

Self-consciousness, 22. 

Self-decision, 23. 

Self-effacement of the Holy Spirit, 502. 

Self-estimate, 21. 

Self-grasp, 20. 

Sermon, the, 422. | 4 

Service, a finality in the universe, 500; is 
fundamental, 463; service of fear, 468; 
service of love, 468; two kinds of serv- 
ice, 463. 

Session of our Lord, 329; a racial deed, 331. 

gnedd, ee T., 402, 477. 

i ck, Henry, 51. 

Sin, 199; and Christian _perfection, 
and death, 285; and God’s ideal, 
conviction of sin, 351; definition, 206; 
depravity, 200, 206; generic sin, 190; 
God’s hatred of sin, 203; is selfi 
198; is unnatural rebellion, 351; peril c 
sin, 206; pea sin, 199; personal sin 
as related to ethics, 1909; sin 
defined, 207; racial sin, 202; racial sin 
defined, 207; Wesley’s definition, 199; 


378; 
2373 


| 


Westminster definition, 195 Also see In- 
dividual sin. 
Sin against the Holy Ghost (“the un- 
pardonable sin’’), 343. 
“‘Sinless perfection,’’ 378. 
Sinner, awakened, 351; convicted, 351; 
enlightened, 351; his own bearing, 349; 
how forgiven, 331; how satisfied, 333; 
invited, 352. 
Smyth, Newman, 282. 
Social act of creation, 500. 
Social fundament of all being, 499. 
Social life in heaven, 447. 
Social nature of the Christian religion, 
137. 
Socialism, 441; and the Christian church, 
442; and the French Revolution, 442. 
Solidarity of mankind, 135. 
Son of God, the, 498; and creation, 500; 
and obedience, 500; his kingdom, 500; 
his mediation, 501; his peculiarity, 502; 
his self-assertion, 502; his subordination, 
502. 
Son of man, 213. | 
Sonship by adoption, 366. 
Se 399. 
peculation, 187. 
Spencer, Herbert, 17, 107, 288, 448. 
Spirit, the, and the Incarnation, 506. 
iritual o: » 497- 

Stanley, A. P., 210, 430. 
Stevens, G. B., 213, 262, 305. 
Strauss, D. F., 313. a. 
Subordination, in the Trinity, 494; of our 
Lord, 491. . 
“Sum total of final universe,’ 468. 
Supernatural, the, 70, 79; analyzed, 80; 
and religion, 92; and the Christian re- 
ligion, 164; origin of man’s sense of the 
peel, 82. 
Superstition, 84. 
Supper, last. See Lord’s Supper. 
Swedenborgianism, 483. P 
“Sweep of the plan of redemption,” 


454. 
Systematic theology, 183; defined, 188; its 
personal element, 186; its purpose, 183; 
related to biblical theology, 185; related 
to Christian consciousness, 185; related 
to speculation, 187; related to the Bible, 
185; value, 184. 


Table of our Lord, the. See Lord’s Supper. 
Taboo, institution of, 20, 31. 

Taproot, the, of moral concern, 69, 72. 
Taylor, Isaac, 399. 

Taylor, Jeremy, 374. 

Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 420. 
Temptation, and Christian perfection, 377; 
378; of our Lord, 248. 

Ten Commandments, 278. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 21. 

Terry, M. S., 445, 446. 

Tertullian, 224, 256. 

Theism, 95, 102. 

Theodicy, and eternal punishment, 462, 
469; and foreknowledge of God, 480; 
and nescience, 480. 

Theology, 473- 

iess, on Gethsemane, 312. 

“Thing in itself,”’ 146. 

Thoreau, H. D., 58. 

*“*Three cosmical spheres,” 412. 

Tiele, -C. P., 78. 





INDEX 


539 


Time, and Christian perfection, 378; and 
foreknowledge of God, 482. 

Tolstoy, 150. 

“Total depravity,’”’ 200. 

‘“‘Transformed motive,”’ 389. 

‘Tree of life,’’ 291, 204. 

Trine immersion, 429. 

Trinity, the, 265, 483; and baptism, 420, 
and causation, 498; and equality, 404; 
and German speculation, 486; and Latin 
fathers, 472; and moral love, 494; and 
New face, 510; and self-sacrifice, 494; 
and subordination, 494; consistency re- 
quired, 491, 492; doctrinal construction, 
493; essential points of belief, 484; final 
statement, 497; ldeéty¢, 408; popd7), 
497; TEPLY@PTOLC, 408; rejected views 
(agnostic, 485; Arian, 483; humani- 
tarian, 483; modalistic, or Sabellian, 
483, 487; Swedenborgian, 483; tritheis- 
tic, 483); the Father, 497; the Holy 
Spirit, 498; the Son, 498; three real per- 
sons in one absolute organism, 407, 498; 
use of terms in constructing the doctrine, 


406. 
Tritheism, 483. 
Triumphant church, 445. 
Truth, 145. 
Turretin, 278. 
“‘Two Infinites,” 271. 
Two wills in Christ, question of, 251. 


Ultimate condition of the wicked. See 
Lost men. 

Unitarianism, 499, 506. 

Unity, Christian, 424; in the cosmos, 100; 
of God, 493, 498; of the church, 424. 

Universe, final, and lost men, 464. 

Unpardonable sin, the. See Sin against 
the Holy Ghost. 


Vaughan, on Romans 5. 12, 286. 

Verbal theory of inspiration, 177. 

Vice, 353- 

Virgin birth, the, 233. 

Virgin Mary, the, 5or. 

Vision, of righteousness, 351; of sin, 3513 
of the Holy God, 351. 


Walden, 58. 

Walker, W. L., 504. 

Wallace, A. R., 7. 

Ward, James, 38. 

Warren, W. F., 78, 183. 

Watson, Richard, 472, 477. 

Wellhausen, Julius, 161. 

Wesen, das, des Christentums, 126. 

Wesley, John, 363, 373, 391, 398; his defi- 
nition of sin, 199; his own religious ex- 
perience, 374; his teaching on Christian 
perfection analyzed, 377; his view of a 
sinner’s condition, 382; personal con- 
clusion as to Wesley’s real meaning in 
his teaching on Christian perfection, 
382. 

Westminster definition of sin, 195. 

Whately, Richard, 399. 

Whedon, D. D., 38, 46, 47, 291, 294, 


443. 

White, Edward, 450. 

Whitman, Walt, 281. 

Wicked, the, ultimate condition. 
men. 


See Lost 








540 INDEX 


Witness of the Spirit, 367, 368. Also see | Wrong (and right), notion of, 28; origin o 


Assurance. 272. 
Wordsworth, William, 58, 104, ros. Wundt, Wilhelm, 53. 
“Works,” 332. 
Worship of Christ in the early church, 224. | Zeitgeist, 186, 268, 496. 
Wrath of God, 266; analyzed, 267. Zwingli, 431. 


SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 


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